To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee 🤨

1197/399 pages (read it three times hehe)

The unforgettable novel of a childhood in a sleepy Southern town and the crisis of conscience that rocked it. “To Kill A Mockingbird” became both an instant bestseller and a critical success when it was first published in 1960. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and was later made into an Academy Award-winning film, also a classic. Compassionate, dramatic, and deeply moving, “To Kill A Mockingbird” takes readers to the roots of human behavior – to innocence and experience, kindness and cruelty, love and hatred, humor and pathos. Now with over 18 million copies in print and translated into forty languages, this regional story by a young Alabama woman claims universal appeal. Harper Lee always considered her book to be a simple love story. Today it is regarded as a masterpiece of American literature. (Goodreads)

It was, in essence, a really great book. I did have to analyse the crud out of it; it was a novel study, duh; but I really enjoyed the humorous telling and the lessons on human behavior throughout the book. It wasn’t amazing, but it wasn’t terrible, and I didn’t find it particularly thought-provoking. I only read it three times because I had a truckload of assignments to do all relating to the book.

The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend by Katarina Bivald 🤨

394/394 pages

Once you let a book into your life, the most unexpected things can happen… Broken Wheel, Iowa, has never seen anyone like Sara, who traveled all the way from Sweden just to meet her pen pal, Amy. When she arrives, however, she finds that Amy’s funeral has just ended. Luckily, the townspeople are happy to look after their bewildered tourist—even if they don’t understand her peculiar need for books. Marooned in a farm town that’s almost beyond repair, Sara starts a bookstore in honor of her friend’s memory. All she wants is to share the books she loves with the citizens of Broken Wheel and to convince them that reading is one of the great joys of life. But she makes some unconventional choices that could force a lot of secrets into the open and change things for everyone in town. (Goodreads)

This was a sweet little book, with plenty of thought-convos. I particularly liked the third person omniscient perspective that this story was written in, it was really interesting to know the thoughts of the characters versus what they allow other people to know/outwardly show. It wasn’t particularly thought-provoking though, and I especially scout out philosophical, psychological books. I felt like the characterization versus meaningless description was kind of off balance, and leaning more towards the meaningless description side, though that might be up for debate.

Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder 🙃

518/518 pages

One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: “Who are you?” and “Where does the world come from?” From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning—but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined. (Goodreads)

This was a pretty great book! It was little difficult to get through, what with all of the philosophy letters at the beginning, but it was a pretty understandable summary of a a lot philosophical arguments that it would have been otherwise difficult to understand. The mind-blowing plot twist that was oh-so slowly introduced caught me completely off-guard, and it was an awesome surprise that convinced me to get through it.

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd 🤨

384/384 pages

Hetty “Handful” Grimke, an urban slave in early nineteenth century Charleston, yearns for life beyond the suffocating walls that enclose her within the wealthy Grimke household. The Grimke’s daughter, Sarah, has known from an early age she is meant to do something large in the world, but she is hemmed in by the limits imposed on women. On Sarah’s eleventh birthday, she is given ownership of ten year old Handful, who is to be her handmaid. We follow their remarkable journeys over the next thirty five years, as both strive for a life of their own, dramatically shaping each other’s destinies and forming a complex relationship marked by guilt, defiance, estrangement and the uneasy ways of love. As the stories build to a riveting climax, Handful will endure loss and sorrow, finding courage and a sense of self in the process. Sarah will experience crushed hopes, betrayal, unrequited love, and ostracism before leaving Charleston to find her place alongside her fearless younger sister, Angelina, as one of the early pioneers in the abolition and women’s rights movements. Inspired by the historical figure of Sarah Grimke, Kidd goes beyond the record to flesh out the rich interior lives of all of her characters, both real and invented, including Handful’s cunning mother, Charlotte, who courts danger in her search for something better. (Goodreads)

Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah 🙃

454/454 pages

Meredith and Nina Whitson are as different as sisters can be. One stayed at home to raise her children and manage the family apple orchard; the other followed a dream and traveled the world to become a famous photojournalist. But when their beloved father falls ill, Meredith and Nina find themselves together again, standing alongside their cold, disapproving mother, Anya, who even now, offers no comfort to her daughters. As children, the only connection between them was the Russian fairy tale Anya sometimes told the girls at night. On his deathbed, their father extracts a promise from the women in his life: the fairy tale will be told one last time—and all the way to the end. Thus begins an unexpected journey into the truth of Anya’s life in war-torn Leningrad, more than five decades ago. Alternating between the past and present, Meredith and Nina will finally hear the singular, harrowing story of their mother’s life, and what they learn is a secret so terrible and terrifying that it will shake the very foundation of their family and change who they believe they are. (Goodreads)

I thought this book was awesome! From the characters to the suspenseful development of plot and the slow opening up of Meredith and Nina’s mother, it had the heart-wrenchingly depressing beauty of a snow covered forest. I felt like the ending was too beautiful for a book that describes such a tragic period in history, but it was touching nonetheless.

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver 🤨

546/546 pages

The Poisonwood Bible is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it — from garden seeds to Scripture — is calamitously transformed on African soil. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family’s tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa. (Goodreads)

This book was pretty amazing! It really highlights historical Western arrogance that says we are superior and know the right way to do things. It also gives a great perspective on the differences in cultures, each with their own flaws and strengths. I felt like Ada’s cynicism was pretty depressing, even though it added that extra extra, if you know what I mean, to the book.

In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez 🤪

324/324 pages

Set during the waning days of the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic in 1960, this extraordinary novel tells the story of the Mirabal sisters, three young wives and mothers who are assassinated after visiting their jailed husbands. This tale of courage and sisterhood set in the Dominican Republic during the rise of the Trujillo dictatorship. A skillful blend of fact and fiction, In the Time of the Butterflies is inspired by the true story of the three Mirabal sisters who, in 1960, were murdered for their part in an underground plot to overthrow the government. Alvarez breathes life into these historical figures–known as “las mariposas,” or “the butterflies,” in the underground–as she imagines their teenage years, their gradual involvement with the revolution, and their terror as their dissentience is uncovered. Alvarez’s controlled writing perfectly captures the mounting tension as “the butterflies” near their horrific end. The novel begins with the recollections of Dede, the fourth and surviving sister, who fears abandoning her routines and her husband to join the movement. Alvarez also offers the perspectives of the other sisters: brave and outspoken Minerva, the family’s political ringleader; pious Patria, who forsakes her faith to join her sisters after witnessing the atrocities of the tyranny; and the baby sister, sensitive Maria Teresa, who, in a series of diaries, chronicles her allegiance to Minerva and the physical and spiritual anguish of prison life. (Goodreads)

Shalimar the Clown by Salman Rushdie 🤪

398/398 pages

This is the story of Maximilian Ophuls, America’s counterterrorism chief, one of the makers of the modern world; his Kashmiri Muslim driver and subsequent killer, a mysterious figure who calls himself Shalimar the clown; Max’s illegitimate daughter India; and a woman who links them, whose revelation finally explains them all. It is an epic narrative that moves from California to Kashmir, France, and England, and back to California again. Along the way there are tales of princesses lured from their homes by demons, legends of kings forced to defend their kingdoms against evil. And there is always love, gained and lost, uncommonly beautiful and mortally dangerous. (Goodreads)

Though this has been a bad couple of months for my reading ladder (rating wise), this book was a great end of the semester read. Though there was many lengthy, rambling passages of asides and background information to point where you forget which story was being told by the time it gets back on track, I really enjoyed it all and especially loved how he so intricately connected so many different stories. The brutal honesty of some of the statements was sort of a moral wake-up call for me, and really helped me see from a new perspective that I had never been especially open-minded to before.

Animal Farm by George Orwell 🤪

A farm is taken over by its overworked, mistreated animals. With flaming idealism and stirring slogans, they set out to create a paradise of progress, justice, and equality. Thus the stage is set for one of the most telling satiric fables ever penned –a razor-edged fairy tale for grown-ups that records the evolution from revolution against tyranny to a totalitarianism just as terrible. When Animal Farm was first published, Stalinist Russia was seen as its target. Today it is devastatingly clear that wherever and whenever freedom is attacked, under whatever banner, the cutting clarity and savage comedy of George Orwell’s masterpiece have a meaning and message still ferociously fresh.

Total pages read: 4356!

Pages per week: 436!

Pages per day: 70 and a quarter!