I Am Not a Jedi

The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Run, don’t walk, to your nearest bookstore and pick this shit up NOW.

I’m serious.

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Christmas Jars by Jason F. Wright

My rating: 2 of 5 stars
(Let me preface this by saying this is NOT a book I would normally pick up/read, but someone recommended this book because he said the main character and I had a lot of parallels. I think they mainly were basing it on the fact both she and I worked for a paper. I knew going into it that this was probably going to be Hallmark Channel fodder, and well… as you’ll see below, it definitely delivered)

This book is a very feel good, sappy, fairly predictable tale about a girl who is gung-ho to get out into the world and take it over with her writing. Through her doggedness and the love of her adoptive mother, she makes her way through the ranks at the local paper. Her big break finally comes when she figures out the perfect front page story for the paper: a look at the “Christmas Jar” phenomenon where seemingly random people find themselves being gifted with people’s change jars on Christmas Eve.

Through self-discovery, love, muted religious undertones, and “unexpected” twists and turns, the girl (aptly named “Hope”) realizes what’s really important in life.

I read this immediately after reading The Reader, which I immediately started after reading Middlesex, two completely different and much more poetic books. Following up with this felt like I reading someone’s recently undergrad submission to their Creative Writing II class. It just seemed pithy and orchestrated.

That being said, I did appreciate the message–the idea that through simple actions we can help others around us. It was a fast read and did make me feel some sentimental pangs.

This would be a good one to buy for your grandmom or elderly aunt. They’ll love it–I promise.

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Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt

My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Just finished this one… there was definitely some interesting stuff in here, but the book was difficult to get through. I felt like some of the points were a bit belabored and was actually expecting more examples of how economics could be applied to “real world” situations. The fact that all of the topics were overviewed in the forward kind of made the actual chapters a bit of a let down. The book also just seemed dry–I’m not sure if that applies to the subject matter or the writing.

I do give Levitt (and his co-author) credit for this and do think it’s interesting. As they say in the book, even if you’re able to walk away with a better understanding of the “why” behind things (or the feeling that you should be asking “why” more often instead of simply believing the explanation given to you as truth).

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The Reader by Bernhard Schlink

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I tore through this book in a day.

This book was well written–crisp, sensual. It reminded me a lot of the book Silk.

There were a lot of ideas that were offered in this book that I appreciated, specifically of how the main character “Kid” (I think they mention his name, but I remember Hanna’s nickname for him most) likens our past experiences/relationships to tectonic plates–the idea that we build these experiences on top of one another and can’t really view them as their own, separate entities. I think that was a really interesting concept for me and one I’ve been accepting more and more. Why forget the past and try to deny it when you can accept that–for good and bad–it’s shaped you and you’ve been able to develop who you are or where you are because of it?

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