I am so scared that Ken Follett is going to die before he finishes this series.  He’s not sick or anything but the amount of research it must take to write these books seems like it would be enough to kill even a healthy man. 

This book continues the story Follett began in Fall of Giants.  So remember how I annoyed my husband while reading that book?  Yeah.  I continued that tradition.  There is just so much interesting history in this book.  Why can’t schools teach like this?  This book continues telling the story of the 20th century through the families Follett strategically places in several different countries.  This book specifically deals with World War 2.  It’s illuminating.  It’s heartbreaking.  It’s infuriating.  And, from what Kevin tells me, it’s all true.

This book would be a great eBook if you have that option.  It is almost 1000 pages.  And a book that heavy is just not comfortable to read.  And, yes, I am that lazy.  Thanks for asking.

I hated this book so hard.

I did not approach this book thinking it would be anything like Rowling’s Harry Potter series.  I say that because all the glowing reviews of this piece of drivel on Amazon assume this is the reason that people don’t like it.  Some reviewers have even compared this to The Grapes of Wrath or Great Expectations.  To this, my only response can be : “What are you smoking?”

The Casual Vacancy is about small town politics.  And it’s also about just horrible people.  Is this real life?  I really hope not.  Because this is the saddest bunch of humans I have ever encountered.

The story, in itself, is fairly interesting.  A small town trying desperately to stay insulated from a bigger city to somehow retain their facade of virtue and goodness.  And to give JK Rowling credit…she writes some fine sentences. 

But, in the end, I think she was just trying too hard to prove that she could write an adult novel.  Using the most graphic language over and over again doesn’t make something ‘grown up’.  And it just seems like someone who is talented enough to create Harry Potter oughta know that.

It’s book club time again ya’ll!!!

Since the Oliver North fiasco, I have had really good luck.  Great books, great discussions, great gals.   But I knew it couldn’t last.  And so, we were introduced to The Harbinger.

Just look in the top left corner.  You see that blurb?  It says “Extraordinary” – Pat Robertson.  See…that should have tipped me off.  But I bought it on the Kindle where, apparently, they hide the blurbs by crazy TV preachers in an effort to con you into thinking you are reading something good.

There are lots of reasons that the world hates us.  (And by ‘us’ I mean Christians)  Not the least of which is the fact that Jesus told us the world would hate us.  So I ain’t all that concerned by it…but still.  Christian fiction is one of the worst evangelists.  And this book is a real good example of why.

Much like “Ollie’s” book, this book is written as fiction to somehow cloak the fact that IT’S TRUE!!!
And that just gets on my nerves.  If your story is true, then have the dang courage to write it as non-fiction.  Because once you wrap your words in the genre of fiction, then it leads me to wonder just how much of this story is made up.  And in the context of this book, the fiction part is what kills it.  The author has copious footnotes.  He can back up his legitimate claims.  But he buries his facts in the clunkiest dialogue in the history of writing.  It is just supremely awful. 

So, quick recap.  America is being warned by God to repent.  So far, so good.  I would absolutely agree that God is not super thrilled with our behavior.  The harbingers are specific events that have occurred that the author ties back to biblical prophecy.  Some are very specific.  Others are a bit vaguer. 

Spoiler Alert! One of the harbingers in John Edwards.  No.  Seriously.

And here’s the best part.  My whole book club hated it!  I was so happy.  And look, I am pretty good at being able to love and respect people with whom I disagree.  But this book is doody and I just don’t think that is a fact left open for interpretation.

Do you get tired of me saying that a book changed my life?

Well, tough noogies, cuz this one did it again.

A few chapters in, I breathed this prayer.  “Thank you God for joy.”  I thought I had this whole book figured out.   It was about life without happiness.  The story (and forgive me, it’s a bit hard to explain) is about a boy named Jonas.  Jonas lives in what can ironically be described as a ‘planned community”.  Everything is decided for you.  Everyone is obscenely polite.  Everyone does what they are supposed to do.  (There’s a lot more to it but I want to experience it via the author and not by my clumsy retelling.) 

All the kids in the community receive their career assignments at age 12.  Jonas is assigned to be the new keeper of memory.  That person holds all the memories for the community.  And he (the giver) starts to transfer those memories to Jonas.  At first Jonas is getting really good memories.  He sees color for the first time.  He experiences snow.  He learns the word ‘love’.  And then he has to start receiving the bad memories.  He relives war, and death, and pain, and hunger and loneliness. 

And that’s when it hit me.  Without pain, there is no joy.  Once Jonas begins to receive the memories, he realizes that all the emotions he thought he had before were just shallow imitations of the real thing.  And that is just a hard reality, isn’t it?

The community has no passion.  Couples are matched and they marry.  But they don’t have a marital relationship. They don’t divorce, which sounds kinda awesome. They don’t fight, which also sounds great.  But they also don’t have any physical relationship.  And sure, that eliminates the whole adultery problem.  But it also eliminates the whole ‘your husband grabs you in the kitchen and kisses you like he is serious about the deal’ situation also.  I gotta tell ya.  I am not willing to give that up.  And admitting that means that I am saying that the joy of my relationship with my husband now is worth the cost of the pain from my former marriage. 

And so as I finished The Giver, I breathed a different prayer.  “Thank you God for the pain.”