Year's End - Four Final Reviews

Current Read: The Selection by Kiera Cass
Current Listen: Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow

"We learn that it is not the rays which bodies absorb, but those which they reject, that give them the colours they are known by." - Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd

With Far From the Madding Crowd, my literary 2015 has ended. And what a way to go. I had heard that Thomas Hardy was one of the more difficult authors to read, so I was very nervous about binge reading this book. I had seen the movie beforehand. I know that I "cheated," but I had never heard of the book until seeing the trailer and didn't even contemplate reading the book until AFTER I had seen the movie. So no hate please :-P

That being said, it was a great book. I was able to get through the majority of the book in about three days. It was nice to read something in the public domain, since that meant I could have a copy of the e-book on my phone as well as the physical book for ease of reading at the gym. The book chronicles the life of Bathsheba Everdene, a young, headstrong woman attempting to manage a large farm in male-dominated rural England. It's a pretty straightforward 19th century English romance, but it is the first one I have ever read written by a man. I've read all the Austens, plus some Gaskell, Eliot, and Charlotte Bronte, and this one did seem a bit different. There was a lot less social commentary on the role of women in society and in English courtship. Bathsheba said things regarding being a woman that would have made Elizabeth Bennett cringe. But I did appreciate that it was darker in tone than anything I've read of this genre, which seems typical from what I know about Hardy and Tess of the d'Urbervilles. More poverty and death made for what is probably a more realistic picture of rural England than Sense and Sensibility, and the characters were a few rungs lower in the social order as well. I'll definitely read more of him.

Next, a few brief reviews of some easier (but still great) things I've been finishing up during this winter break. First, I decided to take on the Holiday BookTubeAThon, which is a 3-day reading stint filled with challenges that many booktubers take part in. There's a longer version in October, but this one is more convenient since it's during a break from school. These were the three challenges:

1. Read a follow up to something else you read this year.
2. Read a book with white on the cover.
3. Read a book that was a gift (not necessarily from Christmas).

For the first, I read Winter by Marissa Meyer, which is the final book in her AMAZING Lunar Chronicles series. I read every book in the series this year and then proceeded to buy the first three since they're in paperback. These are fairy tale retellings with an awesome dystopian spin. They follow Cinder, a cyborg from New Beijing, who finds herself wrapped up in a conflict with Queen Levana of Luna. With each subsequent book three more major female characters, each representing their own fairy tale, are added to Cinder's story. The plot is inventive and well-constructed, and there are FOUR awesome romances. Me gusta mucho. Just please read them. They're awesome.

Secondly, I read Let It Snow by John Green, Maureen Johnson, and Lauren Myracle. This fulfilled the "book that takes place during Christmas" portion of my reading challenge, and with this book I have officially read everything John Green has published to date. It was a sweet little book of three related short stories that take place during a Christmas Eve snow storm. My personal favorite story was Maureen Johnson's, entitled "The Jubilee Express." All three were sweet and easy to read, and I will probably read it every Christmas.

Finally, for the third challenge I read The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate. This is a book that was given to me by a fellow teacher, and it was much more impactful than I was anticipating. It is a middle reader book written in short free verse poems. It is a fictionalized account of a real gorilla, Ivan, who was kept in a cage in a mall in Washington state for 27 years. You read that correctly. 27. The coolest part of the book is that it is written from Ivan's perspective as a gorilla with memories of growing up in Africa and then being raised more or less like a human child. It was heartbreaking in places and really funny in others. It will take you only an hour or two to read, so I highly recommend it.

Well, with that, this year is done. It was a great one. Stayed tuned very soon for an overview of my 2015 in reading and some reading resolutions for 2016. For now, that's all she read!