One Girl's Books

Before I Die

Sorry for the lack of posts.

Just finished Before I Die by Jenny Downham. A haunting and beautiful novel about a 16-year-old girl facing death. Tessa has been fighting leukemia for four years and time is running out. She has a list of things she wants to do before she dies (sex, drugs ...). I know this description sounds sort of trite, but the book is so well-written, that any chance of schmaltz overtaking the story is averted through Downham's strong prose.

Buy it here.

Although I haven't been posting, I have been buying lots of books. Does that count?

I just started Roddy Doyle's The Woman who Walked Into Doors and it will be the subject of a future post.

One source I've been using for book recommendations lately has been Nick Hornby's column in The Believer. Check out his Stuff I've Been Reading columns here.

The Road - not taken

Just finished The Road by Cormac McCarthy - Oprah's and the Pulitzer committee's much-loved post-apocalyptic novel. I didn't love it. At all.

I really wanted to be moved by the story of an unnamed father and son making their way through the bleak nuclear winter of America after "the end of the world." They stop. They shiver. They eat tinned peaches. Repeat. They hide from cannibals. They push a cart. They investigate long-deserted houses. Repeat.

Some of McCarthy's language just annoyed me. He only uses contractions for certain words. Conversations have no quotations. Certain words are repeated endlessly like laved for washed, for example.

Worth reading, but not enough back story. Not enough character development. Here.

Annoyed.