New Approach

Okay, so I'm trying to make this blog a little more interesting so from now on I'm going to review the book as I read it. I haven't started the next book, but will probably tomorrow. When I read something interesting I will post about it. If any of you would like to read along and discuss it with me as I read that would be lots of fun.

The next book that I'm going to read is So Big by Edna Ferber. I hope you read along and make lots of comments! Until then, happy reading.

Able McLaughlins Review

I think that I enjoyed this book more than I've enjoyed any book for a while. It is just a good book full of good people, well mostly. I guess the main characters are good, but there always has to be someone bad in it to make for an interesting story. I had a really hard time finding this book to borrow from the library. The university my husband works for only had a copy that was not for circulation and our city library didn't have any. I tried an interlibrary loan and was told there were only 100 copies in our entire state (and I live in a LARGE state) so I went online hoping to buy one for $5.00, but the cheapest copy I could find was $20.00. My point in telling you all this? It may be a hard one to find, for those of you who live near me and want to borrow it, you're welcome to.

The story is about a group of people who came over from Scotland and settled in Iowa. It's a small community and most of them are related, but not all. It starts with a story about the McLaughlin's son, Wully, who has been fighting in the Civil War and he has a short homecoming. While he is home recovering from some wounds he is reintroduced to Chirstie and falls in love and decides that she is the one for him to marry. In fact they both kind of fall in love right a way. He has to go back to the war for several months but returns home anxious to see Chirstie and to marry her, but she doesn't respond to him and in fact is cold and almost frightened of him. I don't want to go into detail about why because it would ruin the book, but it is a bad thing that happens to her while he is away.

The rest of the book is a love story between these two people and how they build their lives and make something great out of something tragic that happens. I really liked Wully, I think he is an excellent man and personifies all that is good in the world. I also loved to read about Wully's mother, Mrs. McLaughlin. She is the kind of woman I would like to be. She's industrious, kind, funny, and all around just a great woman and mother, she is one of my favorite characters.

Although there is sadness and some angry emotions in this book, mostly of revenge, it is an uplifting story about human nature and how healing it is to forgive and to love. I would highly recommend it to anyone.

One of Ours Review

I was really excited to read this book because I'm a fan of Willa Cather. She is most known for her books "My Antonia" and "Oh, Pioneers" and it was surprising that "One of Ours" was her prize winning book and one of her least known, at least to me. It started out talking about a young boy named Claude and his desire to make something of himself. He and his father had kind of a rocky relationship. I think that Claude was a little embarrassed of his father and definitely of his older brother, Bayliss. As he grew his desire to move on from their farm into the world to make something of himself and hopefully loose some of his awkwardness grew. He tried to go to the University of Nebraska, but his mother was adamant that he go to a little church college. Claude began to take some courses that he was excited about (one he took at the University, but I don't think he told his mother) and he made friends with a family. For some of this section you think there will be a romance between Claude and one of his friend's mother, but nothing comes of it and I have to say, thank goodness. When Claude returns home for his break his father tells the family how he bought a ranch in Colorado and his son, Ralph, will be going to run it so that would mean Claude had to stay and take care of his mother and the older black lady, Mahailey, that works for them, thus crashing all of Claude's dreams of becoming something other than a farmer. He takes it and runs with it though, which was something I was impressed with. He didn't do a lousy job of it, he threw himself fully into making the farm something great and he did it.

During this time he hooked up with some friends from high school and fell in love with one of the girls, Enid. With a name like that you have to know she's no good and she isn't. After they get married she denies Claude any marital enjoyment and becomes actively involved in politics and prohibition. Her sister in China becomes ill and so she leaves Claude (not in a divorce way, just in a leaving on a trip way) and goes to be with her sister. All in all, this made Claude happy. Before he got married he believed Enid would change to be like his own mother, but she was too modern and I think extremely selfish. I wondered why she even married him, she never seemed to love him. Admirably enough he stays true to his unhappy marriage throughout the book.

Soon after this the war breaks out in France (this is really the focus of the book) and Claude has a desire to become involved. At this point he joins the army and we catch up with him on his break before he ships off to France, when he's coming home to Nebraska. His farewell to his mother was one of the most touching points of this book, you could truly see the love this mother and son had for each other and I have to admit my eyes moistened.

The rest of the book, I hate to say, was not as enjoyable. It was very choppy. It seemed that the author heard some stories of the war and just threw them in; they didn't really connect to each other. We hear about a soldier he saw at one of the stops who was handicapped and he had a girlfriend. Claude becomes interested in them and follows them around, the next day he asks about this boy, but that is the end. The soldier never comes into the book. This is just one example, there are many stories that don't really pan out, they're just stories.

All in all, I could hardly put the book down at the beginning and when I came to the war I read only to see how he would die because you knew that finally Claude was making something of himself and it wasn't going to last. I think that the author should've won for her other books, but I'm glad she did win because she is a great author.

Alice Adams Review

The main character Alice is a young female with parents and an older brother. Her vision of the world at the beginning of the book is very naïve. She believes in the good in every body and isn't aware that they don't like her and think she is pushy and a flirt. When she attends a dance, with her brother who hangs around with the wrong sort of people, she comes to a realization that the people she thought were her friends really weren't. Nobody asked her to dance and no one really talked to her. All the boys who used to come around her house stopped coming and no longer associate with her. Her mother, who I believe is a little over dramatic, thinks it's all her father's fault because he is settling in his job and not trying to make more of himself. Many times in the book Alice's parents have an argument over this subject. Alice's mother believes that the father could make a great living running a glue factory, but thinks he is lazy because he refused to do it and remains with his employer, Mr. Lamb. Alice's mother believes that Alice would have more friends if they had more money.

Alice's father is very sickly and at the beginning of the book is off work because of being ill. As he finally gets better Alice begins having regular visits by a great young man who is wealthy and is a relative to a wealthy family in town. Alice makes up a lot of stories so that he will think more highly of her and her family. The father decides he needs to help Alice and begins to open the glue factory. There are some ethical questions regarding the recipe for the glue that has been stopping him all these years and it has something to do with his boss, Mr. Lamb. The poor father almost drives himself mad wondering what Mr. Lamb thinks of him. Mr. Lamb in the end turns out to be a great man and not so much the typical rich person that the Adams family believes him to be, although the mother still isn't satisfied with her husband and the decisions he had to make. The young man who is visiting Alice on the other hand, turns out to be not so great, and does listen to what other people say of Alice.

The book made me really think about how much emphasis I put on what other people think of me. In the end does it really matter? Throughout this book that is the Adams family's concern: they are embarrassed of their small rickety house and that they don't have paid help and that Alice's dress is the wrong material. What it boils down to in the end is what you make of yourself and how you treat other people. Alice realizes that and makes a change in her life for the better.

The beginning of this book was rather slow and uninteresting to me, but as it went on and I got to know the characters better and begin to have interest in their lives the book improved a lot.

Age of Innocence Review

I'm afraid to say that this book was rather boring to me. Most of the beginning of the book talks about New York society, something that doesn't really interest me. I felt I was waiting for something to happen that would make me care about the main character, ol' whatsisname. I basically knew the way the story was going to go so I was just kind of waiting for it to happen, especially when he started to visit his fiancé's cousin a lot and was excited by how different she was and how she didn't care what others thought of her. He was tired of the routine of daily life and of expecting what was to come. I was glad but unsure when he married his fiancé. I felt he was being honorable but at the same time kind of stupid, because I knew that he had feelings for Ellen (the cousin).

Ellen had something going on with her ex-husband who she wanted to divorce, though her family was against it. This kept them from getting married and sent him to marry his fiancé. The best part of the book was the end when he was about to drop the bomb to his wife that he was going to run off to Japan or somewhere far away with Ellen, but when his wife dropped a bomb first that she was pregnant he really did the honorable thing and stayed and they had three children. His wife died after the third was born, but he stayed and raised them. At the very end he is with his oldest son who is about to be married and they are traveling to France and he has the opportunity to see Ellen. Does he take it or not? I will leave that question unanswered (if you really want to know tell me and I'll post it, but if you want to read the book this is the only part that is a surprise so I don't want to ruin it for anyone).

Stay tuned for Wednesday and I'll post the review for Alice Adams by Booth Tarkington.

A Few Changes and a Review

I've been thinking about how I can make this blog a bit more exciting and decided that what people are really interested in reading are the reviews so I've decided I'm going to focus on posting reviews. As I read each book I'll post my thoughts and feelings on the book as I read. I will be posting more often during the week (I'll always post on Monday) and then if you would like to read along with me you can. Now, I have a confession to make, I'm not actually reading the book that won the award in 1919, I read that several weeks ago. I actually just finished the book that won in 1924, so the next few books I will post my review and also some additional thoughts on the book. Each week it will be a different review until we get to the book from 1924. Does that make sense? I hope so. So this week the book that I will review is the "Magnificent Ambersons" by Booth Tarkington.

I think I really enjoy reading books that are written about people and their lives. I must be a nosy person at heart! I enjoy reading the gossip that happens to them and who they fall in love with and who doesn't like them and so on. This is a perfect example of that kind of book. It is much like an American version of a Jane Austen novel. It is written about a family, the Ambersons, who build a town and are the most prominent figures in the town. Although the daughter of the family patriarch, "the Major" is beautiful and admired by everyone, she marries and has a son that everyone in the town hates and can't wait until he gets his "comeuppance". He's snotty, proud, and rude to everyone in the town. The book follows him (his name is Georgie and is actually called that throughout the novel because he has an uncle named George - it helps keep them separate) throughout his life. My feelings for Georgie were kind of like a rollercoaster. At the beginning, I would say until he goes to college, I didn't like him at all. He was a brat. Once he begins college and he falls in love, I started to think he wasn't so bad and then all heck breaks loose and he drops down to the bad side, but in the end he redeems himself.

In the middle of the book Georgie hears that the town is talking about his mother and the father of the girl he is in love with (got that?). Georgie's father dies and these two begin seeing each other regularly. Georgie's only concern is for the good name of his family and not so much for his mother. This is actually why the book dropped from 5 to 4 yarn balls for me. I think he is overly dramatic about the talk that is happening. He confronts the town gossip and then goes ballistic with his Aunt Fanny and his mother. In many ways he overreacts and I kind of found myself rolling my eyes at times and thinking he needed to chill out. I think I felt the same as his uncle who tells him that the talk would die down and not to listen to it. I think the real reason Georgie freaks out is something that the book really doesn't address. Georgie wants to marry Lucy and it's her father that is courting Georgie's mother. Well, Lucy's father doesn't think Georgie is very useful to society because Georgie wants to be a gentleman and have no profession and he won't give Lucy his blessing. I think that Georgie doesn't want his mother to be with Lucy's father because Lucy's father won't let Georgie be with Lucy. Does that make sense?

All in all, the book is enjoyable and ends very well. It talks a lot about the growth and development of a city. At the beginning of the story Lucy's father is trying to invent the automobile and by the end they are more common than the horse and buggy. The town grows so much and so fast that it becomes unrecognizable to those who helped build it. I really enjoyed reading it and would recommend it to anyone who does enjoy books about society.