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153. The Wish Granter

Rating:  ☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   C. J. Redwine

Genre:  Fiction, Young Adult, Fantasy

432 pages, published February 14, 2017

Reading Format:  e-Book on Overdrive

 

Summary

The Wish Granter is a romantic, action-packed young adult fantasy novel loosely based on the tale of Rumpelstiltskin.  It centers on the story of Ari Glavan, who along with her brother Thad, are the bastard twins of Súndraille’s king.  Ari must take on the Wish Granter Alistair Teague, an evil fae, to save her brother’s soul.  Thad, who has traded his soul to save his people, sits on the throne of a kingdom whose streets are suddenly overrun with violence he can’t stop.  Growing up on the edges of society, Ari never wanted to be a proper princess and rebels against the royal expectations of her.  In her attempt to best Teague, Ari recruits Sebastian Vaughn, her brother’s new weapons master, to teach her how to fight.  With their souls and the kingdom on the line, it all comes down to an epic battle between Ari and Sebastian against the powerful Wish Granter.

 

Quotes

“Sometimes having courage means the hardest tasks fall onto your shoulders, and those leave the biggest scars.”

 

“There’s a restless, pent-up power in the sea, and you know if it ever decided to stop respecting its boundaries, it could destroy you. But it does respect its boundaries. It stays where it should, so its power feels safe. When you stand here, surrounded by mystery and beauty and power, you feel safe.”

 

“Coin didn’t protect you. It didn’t save you from your secrets. Only absolute power did that.”

  

My Take

I can’t remember how I found this book.  I think I was traveling and was scanning Overdrive for available books.  The Wish Granter was available for check out, had good reviews and I hadn’t read many fantasy books since starting my quest, so I decided to give it a read.  It was fine, but unlike the Twilight and Hunger Games books, I think I am too old for this series.  Maybe if I read while I was a teenager I would have enjoyed it more.  Recommended for the under 15 set.  Adults should find something better.

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152. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:  Sue Breen

Author:   Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

Genre:  Historical Fiction, Fiction, Romance, World War II

277 pages, published July 29, 2008

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

Written as a series of letters, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society tells two stories.  The first takes place in 1946 Britain during the immediate aftermath of World War II.  London is emerging from the shadow of war and writer Juliet Ashton is looking for her next book subject. She finds it in a letter from a man she’s never met, a native of the island of Guernsey, who has come across her name written inside a book by Charles Lamb.  As Juliet delves into her new subject, the second story of life on the Island of Guernsey, the only part of the UK occupied by the Germans during the war, takes shape and fascinates a curious Juliet.  Juliet is drawn into the eccentric world of this man and his friends and learns about the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, which originated as a spur-of-the-moment alibi when its members were discovered breaking curfew by the Germans occupying their island.  Juliet begins a correspondence with the society’s members, learning about their island, their taste in books, and the impact the recent German occupation has had on their lives. Captivated by their stories, she travels to Guernsey, and what she finds will change her forever.

 

Quotes

“That’s what I love about reading: one tiny thing will interest you in a book, and that tiny thing will lead you to another book, and another bit there will lead you onto a third book. It’s geometrically progressive – all with no end in sight, and for no other reason than sheer enjoyment.”

 

“Reading good books ruins you for enjoying bad books.”

 

“Perhaps there is some secret sort of homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers. How delightful if that were true.”

 

“I don’t want to be married just to be married. I can’t think of anything lonelier than spending the rest of my life with someone I can’t talk to, or worse, someone I can’t be silent with.”

 

“Life goes on.” What nonsense, I thought, of course it doesn’t. It’s death that goes on.”

 

“She is one of those ladies who is more beautiful at sixty than she could possibly have been at twenty. (how I hope someone says that about me someday)!”

 

“I kept trying to explain and he kept shouting until I began to cry from frustration. Then he felt remorseful, which was so unlike him and endearing that I almost changed my mind and said yes. But then I imagined a lifetime of having to cry to get him to be kind, and I went back to no again.”

“Have you ever noticed that when your mind is awakened or drawn to someone new, that person’s name suddenly pops up everywhere you go? My friend Sophie calls it coincidence, and Mr. Simpless, my parson friend, calls it Grace. He thinks that if one cares deeply about someone or something new one throws a kind of energy out into the world, and “fruitfulness” is drawn in.”

 

“All my life I thought that the story was over when the hero and heroine were safely engaged — after all, what’s good enough for Jane Austen ought to be good enough for anyone. But it’s a lie. The story is about to begin, and every day will be a new piece of the plot. ”

 

“Friends, show me a man who hates himself, and I’ll show you a man who hates his neighbors more! He’d have to–you’d not grant anyone else something you can’t have for yourself–no love, no kindness, no respect!”

 

“If there is Predestination, then God is the devil.”

 

My Take

I really loved listening to the audio version of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, a delightful book rich with colorful characters, especially protagonist Juliet Ashton.  The authors draw you into Juliet’s world and through her letters we can vicariously experience life on the island of Guernsey during and after World War II and life in post war London.  Juliet is intelligent, dedicated, witty, funny, but most importantly, she is kind hearted.  All of her traits permeate this book, making you wish that she was a real person you could know and befriend.  I recently learned that they are making a movie of this book starring Lily James (who was wonderful as both Cousin Rose on Downton Abbey and as Cinderella in the Disney live action movie version).  I think it was an excellent casting choice and I look forward to seeing the film version of one of my favorite books of the year.

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148. The Ocean at the End of the Lane

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Neil Gaiman

Genre:  Fiction, Fantasy, Horror

181 pages, published June 18, 2013

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

The Ocean at the End of the Lane opens with a middle-aged man returning to his childhood home in Sussex, England to attend a funeral.   Although the house he lived in is long gone, he is drawn to the farm at the end of the road, where, when he was seven, he encountered a remarkable girl, Lettie Hempstock, and her mother and grandmother.  He hasn’t thought of Lettie in decades, and yet as he sits by the pond (a pond that she’d claimed was an ocean) behind the dilapidated old farmhouse, the past comes flooding back.  It is a past too bizarre, frightening, and dangerous to have happened to anyone, let alone a small boy.

 

Quotes

“I lived in books more than I lived anywhere else.”

 

“Growing up, I took so many cues from books. They taught me most of what I knew about what people did, about how to behave. They were my teachers and my advisers.”

 

“I do not miss childhood, but I miss the way I took pleasure in small things, even as greater things crumbled. I could not control the world I was in, could not walk away from things or people or moments that hurt, but I took joy in the things that made me happy.”

 

“Different people remember things differently, and you’ll not get any two people to remember anything the same, whether they were there or not.”

 

“Grown-ups don’t look like grown-ups on the inside either. Outside, they’re big and thoughtless and they always know what they’re doing. Inside, they look just like they always have. Like they did when they were your age. Truth is, there aren’t any grown-ups. Not one, in the whole wide world.”

 

“That’s the trouble with living things. Don’t last very long. Kittens one day, old cats the next. And then just memories. And the memories fade and blend and smudge together.”

 

“Oh, monsters are scared,” said Lettie. “That’s why they’re monsters.”

 

“I was a normal child. Which is to say, I was selfish and I was not entirely convinced of the existence of things that were not me, and I was certain, rock-solid, unshakeably certain, that I was the most important thing in creation. There was nothing that was more important to me than I was.”

 

“Nothing’s ever the same,” she said. “Be it a second later or a hundred years. It’s always churning and roiling. And people change as much as oceans.”

 

“Monsters come in all shapes and sizes. Some of them are things people are scared of. Some of them are things that look like things people used to be scared of a long time ago. Sometimes monsters are things people should be scared of, but they aren’t.”

 

“Adults follow paths. Children explore. Adults are content to walk the same way, hundreds of times, or thousands; perhaps it never occurs to adults to step off the paths, to creep beneath rhododendrons, to find the spaces between fences. I was a child, which meant that I knew a dozen different ways of getting out of our property and into the lane, ways that would not involve walking down our drive.”

 

My Take

Nominated and awarded multiple honors in the fantasy genre, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is creates a fantastical parallel world of monsters, one of whom eerily takes on human form, seen through the eyes of young English boy. Reading it, you are never quite sure how much of the book is the boy’s imagination and how much actually happened.  That juxtaposition of fantasy and reality, as well as the skilled pen of author Neil Gaiman, is what makes The Ocean at the End of the Lane an appealing read.

 

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147. The Boston Girl

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Anita Diamant

Genre:  Historical Fiction, Fiction

320 pages, published December 9, 2014

Reading Format:  Audio Book on Overdrive

 

Summary

The Boston Girl is a coming-of-age novel told from the perspective of 85 year old Addie Baum reflecting on her life to her to her twenty-two-year-old granddaughter.  Addie was born in 1900 to Jewish immigrant parents.  Growing up in the North End of Boston, Addie’s intelligence and curiosity take her to a world her parents can’t imagine – a world of short skirts, movies, celebrity culture and new opportunities for women.  Addie wants to finish high school and dreams of going to college.  She wants a career and to find true love.  The book follows her path to achieve all of these things.

 

Quotes

“When a shy person smiles, it’s like the sun coming out.”

 

“It was one of those perfect fall days when the air is cool enough to wake you up but the sun is also kissing your face.”

 

“I’m still embarrassed and mad at myself. But after seventy years, I also feel sorry for the girl I used to be. She was awfully hard on herself.”

 

“You should always be kind to people, Ava. You never know what sorrows they’re carrying around.”

 

“It took me until I was almost forty before I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up.”

 

“When I look at my eighty-five-year-old face in the mirror today, I think, “You’re never going to look better than you do today, honey, so smile.” Whoever said a smile is the best face-lift was one smart woman.”

 

“it’s good to be smart, but kindness is more important.”

 

“Hiking is the same thing as walking, only hotter and twice as far as you want to go. But usually, you’re glad you went.”

 

“Don’t let anyone tell you things aren’t better than they used to be.”

 

“If you treat every question like you’ve never heard it before, your students feel like you respect them and everyone learns a lot more. Including the teacher.”

 

My Take

I had enjoyed The Red Tent, also by Anita Diamant, so I thought I would give The Boston Girl a read (actually a listen).  While not the most engrossing book, it did hold my interest and I was somewhat charmed by Addie Baum, the titular protagonist, and her evolvement from a meek immigrant child into a self actualized modern woman as she journeys through the twentieth century.  An easy and pleasant vacation read.

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144. Room

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   Emma Donoghue

Genre:  Fiction, Suspense, Thriller, Sociology

321 pages, published September 13, 2010

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

Room has a very interesting premise.  Five year old Jack has spent his entire life confined to a small room along with his Ma.  They have constructed an entire world within the confines of a very limited space.  At night, Ma shuts him in wardrobe, so he can be safe when Old Nick visits.  While Room is home to Jack, to Ma, it is the prison where Old Nick has held her captive for seven years.  Ma has created the best life she can for Jack, but she is psychologically on the edge and knows she needs to somehow free them before she has a complete breakdown.  She devises a bold escape plan which depends on the courage of Jack.  However, being free from Room is only the beginning of Ma’s struggle.

 

Quotes

“So they’re fake?” “Stories are a different kind of true.”

 

“Really, a novel does not exist, does not happen, until readers pour their own lives into it.”

 

“Jack. He’d never give us a phone, or a window. “Ma takes my thumbs and squeezes them. “We are people in a book, and he wont let anybody else read it.”

 

“Scared is what you’re feeling. Brave is what you’re doing.  “Huh?” “Scaredybrave.” “Scave.”

Word sandwiches always make her laugh but I wasn’t being funny.”

 

“People don’t always want to be with people. It gets tiring.”

 

“I bang my head on a faucet. “Careful.” Why do persons only say that after the hurt?”

 

“I think the sea’s just rain and salt.”

“Ever taste a tear?” asks Grandma.

“Yeah.”

“Well, that’s the same as the sea.”

I still don’t want to walk in it if it’s tears.”

 

“It’s called mind over matter. If we don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”

 

“The world is always changing brightness and hotness and soundness, I never know how it’s going to be the next minute.”

 

“[E]verywhere I’m looking at kids, adults mostly don’t seem to like them, not even the parents do. They call the kids gorgeous and so cute, they make the kids do the thing all over again so they can take a photo, but they don’t want to actually play with them, they’d rather drink coffee talking to other adults. Sometimes there’s a small kid crying and the Ma of it doesn’t even hear.”

 

“Sometimes when persons say definitely it sounds actually less true.”

 

“In Room me and Ma had time for everything. I guess the time gets spread very thin like butter all over the world, the roads and houses and playgrounds and stores, so there’s only a little smear of time on each place, then everyone has to hurry on to the next bit….”

 

My Take

I listened to Room as an audio book and was captivated by the story.  Told from the perspective of a five year old boy who has never been outside a small room, Donahue has created an entire new world, creatively filled with routines and make believe devised by Ma to keep her and Jack sane and healthy,  inside that room.  Just as interesting is the escape plot hatched by Ma and Ma and Jack’s response to the outside world once they do escape.  It is interesting how Jack responds to all of the things we take for granted and compelling to see how Ma struggles to integrate back into a world she hasn’t lived in for more than seven years.  Room demonstrates the resilience of the human spirit and the extraordinary bond between a mother and her child as Ma and Jack move from one world to another.

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142. The Good Girl

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   Mary Kubika

Genre:  Fiction, Mystery, Thriller, Suspense

352 pages, published July 29, 2014

Reading Format:  Hoopla Audio Book

 

Summary

The Good Girl is a mystery/thriller with a big twist at the end.  One night, Mia Dennett enters a bar to meet her boyfriend.  When he doesn’t show, she makes a spur of the moment decision to leave with an enigmatic stranger.  At first Colin Thatcher seems like a safe one-night stand.  However, following Colin home will turn out to be the worst mistake of Mia’s life.

 

Quotes

“I love the quietness of the library, the gateway to knowledge, to the French language and medieval history and hydraulic engineering and fairy tales, learning in a very primitive form: books, something that’s quickly giving way to modern technology.”

 

“The goal with teenagers is simply getting through it alive, with no permanent damage.”

 

“Teenagers believe they’re invincible—nothing bad can happen. It isn’t until later that we realize that bad things do, in fact, happen.”

 

“As it was, being a bad mother was child’s play compared to being a good mother, which was an incessant struggle, a lose-lose situation 24 hours a day; long after the kids were in bed the torment of what I did or didn’t do during those hours we were trapped together would scourge my soul.”

 

“What did you want?” she asks. What I wanted was a dad. Someone to take care of my mother and me, so I didn’t have to do it myself. But what I tell her is Atari.”

 

“Having a best friend is a wonderful thing. There needs be no proofreading, no refinement, of the comments that come from my head.”

 

My Take

I enjoyed listening to The Good Girl, but didn’t love the book.  Not as gripping as Gone Girl, but The Good Girl is still worth a read, especially if you like the suspense/thriller genre.  It will be interesting to see what they do with the film version.

 

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140. Eleanor & Park

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Rainbow Rowell

Genre:  Fiction, Young Adult, Romance

328 pages, published February 26, 2013

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

Eleanor & Park tells the story of two misfits who share an extraordinary love.  Eleanor, an overweight sixteen year old with wild red hair, is trapped in a dysfunctional family and is barely hanging on when she meets Park.  Park, who is half Asian and much cooler than Eleanor, is her soul mate.  Over the course of one school year, the unlikely couple discover that they share an amazing bond, but that the bond will be tested.  They know that while a first love almost never lasts, they need to try to defy the odds.

 

Quotes

“Eleanor was right. She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn’t supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something.”

 

“I don’t like you, Park,” she said, sounding for a second like she actually meant it. “I…” – her voice nearly disappeared – “think I live for you.”

He closed his eyes and pressed his head back into his pillow.

“I don’t think I even breathe when we’re not together,” she whispered. “Which means, when I see you on Monday morning, it’s been like sixty hours since I’ve taken a breath. That’s probably why I’m so crabby, and why I snap at you. All I do when we’re apart is think about you, and all I do when we’re together is panic. Because every second feels so important. And because I’m so out of control, I can’t help myself. I’m not even mine anymore, I’m yours, and what if you decide that you don’t want me? How could you want me like I want you?”

He was quiet. He wanted everything she’d just said to be the last thing he heard. He wanted to fall asleep with ‘I want you’ in his ears.”

 

“Holding Eleanor’s hand was like holding a butterfly. Or a heartbeat. Like holding something complete, and completely alive.”

 

“I just can’t believe that life would give us to each other,’ he said, ‘and then take it back.’

‘I can,’ she said. ‘Life’s a bastard.”

 

“If you can’t save your own life, is it even worth saving?”

 

“I miss you, Eleanor. I want to be with you all the time. You’re the smartest girl I’ve ever met, and the funniest, and everything you do surprises me. And I wish I could say that those are the reasons I like you, because that would make me sound like a really evolved human being …‘But I think it’s got as much to do with your hair being red and your hands being soft … and the fact that you smell like homemade birthday cake”

 

“The me that’s me right now is yours. Always.”

 

“He tried to remember how this happened—how she went from someone he’d never met to the only one who mattered.”

 

“His parents never talked about how they met, but when Park was younger, he used to try to imagine it.  He loved how much they loved each other. It was the thing he thought about when he woke up scared in the middle of the night. Not that they loved him–they were his parents, they had to love him. That they loved each other. They didn’t have to do that.”

 

My Take

While I mostly enjoyed reading Eleanor & Park, I think I’m a little too old to fully appreciate this book.  As a piece of young adult fiction, teenagers are the target audience.  As a 51 year old woman, I found it a bit too dramatic in its depiction of a first love.  However, it did bring back memories of what it felt like when nothing else in the world matters except the object of your affection.  I’m glad that I felt that way when I was younger, but I’m also glad that I don’t feel that way now that I’m older.

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139. Kitchens of the Great Midwest

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   J. Ryan Stradal

Genre:  Fiction, Food

310 pages, published July 28, 2015

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

Kitchens of the Great Midwest opens with the story of Lars and Cynthia, an unlikely couple from Minnesota.  Lars is an overweight chef devoted to his infant daughter Eva.  Cynthia, who lacks maternal feelings, falls in love with wine and leaves Lars to raise their child while she escapes her oppressive family life with a dashing Sommelier.  Lars is determined to pass on his love of food to his daughter.  As Eva grows, she finds her solace and salvation in the flavors of her native Minnesota.  Focusing on authentic ingredients, Eva becomes a culinary star and in her own no-nonsense, Midwestern manner, she comes to terms with the people who have shaped her life.

 

Quotes

“After decades away from the Midwest, she’d forgotten that bewildering generosity was a common regional tic.”

 

“When Lars first held her, his heart melted over her like butter on warm bread, and he would never get it back. When mother and baby were asleep in the hospital room, he went out to the parking lot, sat in his Dodge Omni, and cried like a man who had never wanted anything in his life until now.”

 

“Even though she had an overbite and the shakes, she was six feet tall and beautiful, and not like a statue or a perfume advertisement, but in a realistic way, like how a truck or a pizza is beautiful at the moment you want it most.”

 

“God made her a giving person, and even in this house of people who could be so hateful and hard, her one skill, she knew, was to serve them and make them happy, the way even an unwatered tree still provides whatever shade it can.”

 

“What people don’t understand about deer is that they’re vermin. They’re giant, furry cockroaches. They invade a space, reproduce like hell, and eat everything in sight.”

 

“He couldn’t help it—he was in love by the time she left the kitchen—but love made him feel sad and doomed, as usual. What he didn’t know was that she’d suffered through a decade of cool, commitment-phobic men, and Lars’s kindness, but mostly his effusive, overt enthusiasm for her, was at that time exactly what she wanted in a partner.”

 

“She’s told me that even though you won’t meet her tonight, she’s telling you her life story through the ingredients in this meal, and although you won’t shake her hand, you’ve shared her heart. Now please, continue eating and drinking, and thank you again.”

 

“Girls were lucky, they didn’t have to have a thing. They just had to look nice and come to your shows and not call you all the time about stupid stuff.”

 

“But Octavia was a nice person with a big, generous heart who felt sorry for outsiders and tried to help them. And people like her never get any thanks for their selflessness. They are not the ones with the hardness to make others wait; they are the ones left waiting, until their souls are broken like old pieces of bread and scattered in the snow for the birds. They can go right ahead and aspire to the stars, but the only chance they’ll ever have to fly is in a thousand pieces, melting in the hot guts of something predatory.”

 

My Take

While I enjoyed Kitchens of the Great Midwest, it is quirky and a bit disjointed.  Each chapter tells the story of a single dish and character, but the main focus is on the enigmatic Eva Thorvald.  We follow her journey from a girl who grows and eats specialty peppers that are extremely hot to a chef sensation who can charge thousands of dollars to attend one of her pop up food events.  The other characters are also richly drawn and I mostly enjoyed the time I spent in this particular Midwestern kitchen.

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138. Ready Player One

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Ernest Cline

Genre:  Fiction, Science Fiction, Dystopia, Young Adult, Thriller

374 pages, published August 16, 2011

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

Ready Player One takes place in the year 2044.  The earth is mostly a wasteland with most residents choosing to live in the virtual reality of the OASIS.  Main character Wade Watts has devoted his life to understanding the intricacies hidden inside this alternate world’s digital borders.  When it is announced that James Halliday, the recently deceased creator of the OASIS, has left his vast fortune to the first person to solve a series of puzzles hidden in the OASIS, Wade and a group of compatriots take up the challenge and start on their quest.

 

Quotes

“The OASIS lets you be whoever you want to be. That’s why everyone is addicted to it.”

 

“What about The Simpsons, you ask? I knew more about Springfield than I knew about my own city.”

 

“Sitting alone in the dark, watching the show on my laptop, I always found myself imagining that I lived in that warm, well-lit house, and that those smiling, understanding people were my family. That there was nothing so wrong in the world that we couldn’t sort it out by the end of a single half-hour episode (or maybe a two-parter, if it was something really serious).”

 

“A recluse. A pale-skinned pop culture–obsessed geek. An agoraphobic shut-in, with no real friends, family, or genuine human contact. I was just another sad, lost, lonely soul, wasting his life on a glorified videogame. But not in the OASIS. In there, I was the great Parzival. World-famous gunter and international celebrity. People asked for my autograph. I had a fan club. Several, actually. I was recognized everywhere I went (but only when I wanted to be). I was paid to endorse products. People admired and looked up to me. I got invited to the most exclusive parties. I went to all the hippest clubs and never had to wait in line. I was a pop-culture icon, a VR rock star. And, in gunter circles, I was a legend. Nay, a god.”

 

“Students weren’t allowed to use their avatar names while they were at school. This was to prevent teachers from having to say ridiculous things like “Pimp Grease, please pay attention!” or “BigWang69, would you stand up and give us your book report?”

 

“In Marie’s opinion, the OASIS was the best thing that had ever happened to both women and people of color. From the very start, Marie had used a white male avatar to conduct all of her online business, because of the marked difference it made in how she was treated and the opportunities she was given.”

 

“From then on, my computer monitored my vital signs and kept track of exactly how many calories I burned during the course of each day. If I didn’t meet my daily exercise requirements, the system prevented me from logging into my OASIS account. This meant that I couldn’t go to work, continue my quest, or, in effect, live my life. Once the lockout was engaged, you couldn’t disable it for two months. And the software was bound to my OASIS account, so I couldn’t just buy a new computer or go rent a booth in some public OASIS café. If I wanted to log in, I had no choice but to exercise first. This proved to be the only motivation I needed. The lockout software also monitored my dietary intake. Each day I was allowed to select meals from a preset menu of healthy, low-calorie foods. The software would order the food for me online and it would be delivered to my door. Since I never left my apartment, it was easy for the program to keep track of everything I ate. If I ordered additional food on my own, it would increase the amount of exercise I had to do each day, to offset my additional calorie intake. This was some sadistic software. But it worked. The pounds began to melt off, and after a few months, I was in near-perfect health. For the first time in my life I had a flat stomach, and muscles. I also had twice the energy, and I got sick a lot less frequently. When the two months ended and I was finally given the option to disable the fitness lockout, I decided to keep it in place. Now, exercising was a part of my daily ritual.”

 

“as terrifying and painful as reality can be, it’s also the only place where you can find true happiness.” 

 

“Listen,” he said, adopting a confidential tone. “I need to tell you one last thing before I go. Something I didn’t figure out for myself until it was already too late.” He led me over to the window and motioned out at the landscape stretching out beyond it. “I created the OASIS because I never felt at home in the real world. I didn’t know how to connect with the people there. I was afraid, for all of my life. Right up until I knew it was ending. That was when I realized, as terrifying and painful as reality can be, it’s also the only place where you can find true happiness. Because reality is real. Do you understand?” “Yes,” I said. “I think I do.” “Good,” he said, giving me a wink. “Don’t make the same mistake I did. Don’t hide in here forever.”

 

“Other virtual worlds soon followed suit, from the Metaverse to the Matrix. The Firefly universe was anchored in a sector adjacent to the Star Wars galaxy, with a detailed re-creation of the Star Trek universe in the sector adjacent to that. Users could now teleport back and forth between their favorite fictional worlds. Middle Earth. Vulcan. Pern. Arrakis. Magrathea. Discworld, Mid-World, Riverworld, Ringworld. Worlds upon worlds.”

 

“As soon as my log-in sequence completed, a window popped up on my display, informing me that today was an election day. Now that I was eighteen, I could vote, in both the OASIS elections and the elections for U.S. government officials. I didn’t bother with the latter, because I didn’t see the point. The once-great country into which I’d been born now resembled its former self in name only. It didn’t matter who was in charge. Those people were rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic and everyone knew it. Besides, now that everyone could vote from home, via the OASIS, the only people who could get elected were movie stars, reality TV personalities, or radical televangelists.”

 

My Take

I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the audio book verison of Ready Player One.  As someone who enjoys reading science fiction and dystopian novels, I appreciate the fascinating world inside the alternative virtual reality of the OASIS created by the very creative Ernest Cline, a writer who know how to keep a story humming along.  It also didn’t hurt that Ready Player One struck a nostalgia nerve with its many references to the video games and movies of my youth.   Time will tell if our future looks like the VR world of the OASIS, but it is interesting to ponder the possibility in the meantime.

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137. Tinkers

Rating:  ☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Paul Harding

Genre:  Fiction

192 pages, published January 1, 2009

Reading Format:  Book

 

Summary

An old man lies dying.  Propped up in his living room and surrounded by his children and grandchildren, George Washington Crosby drifts in and out of consciousness, back to the wonder and pain of his impoverished childhood in Maine.  As the clock repairer’s time winds down, his memories intertwine with those of his father, an epileptic, itinerant peddler and his grandfather, a Methodist preacher beset by madness.

 

Quotes 

 “And as the ax bites into the wood, be comforted in the fact that the ache in your heart and the confusion in your soul means that you are still alive, still human, and still open to the beauty of the world, even though you have done nothing to deserve it.”

 

“What of miniature boats constructed of birch bark and fallen leaves, launched onto cold water clear as air? How many fleets were pushed out toward the middles of ponds or sent down autumn brooks, holding treasures of acorns, or black feathers, or a puzzled mantis? Let those grassy crafts be listed alongside the iron hulls that cleave the sea, for they are all improvisations built from the daydreams of men, and all will perish, whether from the ocean siege or October breeze.”

 

“Everything is made perish; the wonder of anything at all is that it has not already done so. No, he thought. The wonder of anything is that it was made in the first place. What persists beyond this cataclysm of making and unmaking?”

 

“Who was the greatest business man ever. . . The greatest salesman? Advertiser? Who? . . . It was Jesus. . . Jesus was the founder of modern business. . . he picked up twelve men from the bottom ranks of business and forged them into an organization that conquered the world!”

 

“…I will be no more than a tint of some obscure color, and to their great grandchildren nothing they ever know about, and so what army of strangers and ghosts has shaped and coloured me until back to Adam, until back to when ribs were blown from molten sand into the glass bits that took up the light of this world….”

 

“Howard resented the ache in his heart. He resented that it was there every morning when he woke up… He resented equally the ache and resentment itself. He resented his resentment because it was a sign of his limitations of spirit and humility, no matter that he understood that such was each man’s burden. He resented the ache because it was uninvited, seemed imposed, a sentence, and, despite the encouragement he gave himself each morning, it baffled him because it was there whether the day was good or bad, whether he witnessed major kindness or minor transgression, suffered sourceless grief or spontaneous joy.”

 

My Take

I labored through Tinkers, which has won numerous awards, including the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and was happy just to finish it.  Sometimes I think there is an inverse correlation between the prestige of the award bestowed on a book and its readability.  That was certainly the case for me with this book.  There wasn’t much of a plot and what there was seemed to disjointed and uninteresting.  Even worse were the characters.  No one memorable or impressive.  My advice is to skip Tinkers.

 

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