The Catcher in the Rye, written by J.D. Salinger
A sixteen year old boy is going to be kicked out of yet another private school, but leaves early and spends a few days hiding out in New York before his parents expect him home for Christmas break. Depression, grief, depression, frustration, and some more depression fill the pages as he tells us all the reasons why he dislikes everyone and everything in his life, both past and present. There's something about him that I found endearing through all his negativity, drinking, chain smoking, and swearing, probably a combination of his love for his sister and my own experience with depression, but the book as a whole felt draining to me. I chose this book for the "novel that's considered a classic" category of a book challenge I'm doing this year.
Dancing at the Pity Party: A Dead Mom Graphic Memoir, written and illustrated by Tyler Feder
With candid vulnerability and a helpful sense of humor, Feder uses words and art to share her experience of becoming and being motherless. As someone whose own mom died young, I found this book relatable in so many ways. Discovering it by chance in the weeks between the anniversary of my own mom's death and her birthday was perfect timing.
It's an ideal community, one with clear expectations, predictable days, and a shared desire for what's best. Except it's not. With the help of someone older than him, a person experienced in the role he's just been assigned to, a twelve year old boy discovers what's missing, why it matters, and what he can do about it. I chose this book for the "science fiction novel" category of a book challenge I'm doing this year.
p. 193, "The worst part of holding the memories is not the pain. It's the loneliness of it. Memories need to be shared."
The Last Year of the War, written by Susan Meissner
The Maid, written by Nita Prose
With a protagonist who struggles to understand subtlety and social cues, a wealthy man found dead in the hotel room she's responsible for cleaning, and lots of people keeping secrets, this murder mystery managed to be heartwarming while dealing some plot twists I didn't see coming. I chose this book for the "book by a Canadian author" category of a book challenge I'm doing this year.
Citizens and legal residents of America were incarcerated and sent to internment camps because of their heritage during WWII, and sometimes repatriated to their countries of origin when they didn't want or deserve to be. This novel is about a girl whose world was turned upside down when her innocent family experienced that unjust upheaval in their lives. It's a story of war, survival, racism, loyalty, family, friendship, and people trying to do the right thing when everything around them is wrong.
p.36, Papa had told me ages ago, years before the war, that terrible things can happen when you mix two things that don't belong together. He was worried I might one day naively mix laundry bleach with ammonia and he wanted to make sure I understood some things cannot be stirred together in the same pot because they will react in ways that will hurt someone.
It is that way with fear and ignorance, I think.
p. 54, Sometimes what you want is given to you in a way that is so very different from how you had pictured getting it.
p. 72, "Sometimes it's not about right and wrong but now and later. Right now, we are having to put up with a difficult situation that we don't deserve, and it's not right But later, when the war is over, we'll remember that we didn't let it break us. Hmm? Do you understand?"
p. 130, "Maybe being brave is different from being unafraid. If you're not afraid, what is there to be brave about?"
p. 177, I had been told something like that before. That the past is nothing you can make friends or enemies of. It just is what it is. Or was. It is this day you are living right now, this very day, that is yours to make if it what you will. So make it beautiful, if you can.
p. 192, War takes a toll on civilians that is different from what it bleeds from it's soldiers. The deprivations of war are a slow but steady sacrifice.
p. 218, Love, when it's lavished on you after you've said ugly things, is almost too much to bear.
p. 234, We decide who and what we will love and who and what we will hate. We decide what we will do with the love and hate. Every day we decide. It was this that revealed who we were, not the color of our flesh or the shape of our eyes or the language we spoke.
p. 276, Sometimes, after a long stretch of misfortune, compassion is not what you want most, not even when it comes from a good friend. There comes a time when what you want is for your situation to be different.
With a protagonist who struggles to understand subtlety and social cues, a wealthy man found dead in the hotel room she's responsible for cleaning, and lots of people keeping secrets, this murder mystery managed to be heartwarming while dealing some plot twists I didn't see coming. I chose this book for the "book by a Canadian author" category of a book challenge I'm doing this year.
p. 22, "Never ask what a gentleman did or didn't do. If he's a true gentleman, he did it with good cause. And if he's a true gentleman, he'll never tell."
p. 22, You can't judge a person by the job they do or by their station in life; you must judge a person by their actions.
p. 247, For the first time in my life, I think I understand what a true friend is. It isn't just someone who likes you; it's someone willing to take action on your behalf.
The Prayer of Jabez: Breaking Through to the Blessed Life, written by Bruce Wilkinson
A short book that elaborates on a prayer found in I Chronicles 4:9-10, the reader is encouraged to focus on four specific things to pray for. Although it could become formulaic, and despite not totally syncing up with his view in one specific situation, I think there's value in examining the prayers found in the Bible and applying what we learn to our own spiritual life. This book was the January part of a year-long gift from a friend, one book to unwrap and read each month.
p. 24, When we seek God's blessing as the ultimate value in life, we are throwing ourselves entirely into the river of His will and power and purposes for us.
p. 32, O God and King, please expand my opportunities and my impact in such a way that I touch more lives for your glory. Let me do more for you!
p. 39, Whatever our gifts, education, or vocation might be, our calling is to do God's work on earth. If you want, you can call it living out your faith for others. You can call it ministry. You can call it every Christian's day job.
p. 69, Lord, keep me from making the mistakes I'm most prone to when temptation comes. I confess that what I think is necessary, smart, or personally beneficial is so often only the beautiful wrapping on sin. So please, keep evil far from me!
p. 71, Lord, keep me safe from temptations that pull at my emotions and my physical needs, that call out to my sense of what I deserve, what I have the "right" to feel and enjoy. Because You are the true source of all that is really life, direct my steps away from all that is not of You.
The Quiet Zone: Unraveling the Mystery of a Town Suspended in Silence, written by Stephen Kurczy
Kurczy, a journalist who's chosen to live without a cell phone for a decade, dives deep into a part of our country where technology is critical to local astronomy, which means other technology that emit radio waves are forbidden. It's a non-fiction book about living alongside the headquarters of a white supremacy group, trying to understand people who claim to be electrosensitive, connections to a Department of Defense facility, wondering why a famous doctor who's been given huge amounts of money to build a hospital hasn't done so in decades, murders both unsolved and where justice is taken care of outside the court system, misrepresentation of a community by the media, and the effects of both enforcing and disregarding technology restrictions. I chose this book for the "book you've been meaning to read but haven't got to" category of a book challenge I'm doing this year.
p. 80, Once a given aspect of nature, quiet is facing extinction.
p. 84, The lack of cell service created a greater sense of self-reliance, but also of reciprocity.
The Secret of the Old Clock, written by Carolyn Keene
One of the book categories on a reading challenge I'm doing is "a childhood favorite". I loved the Nancy Drew series as a kid, so I read the first one this month. I hadn't remembered that Bess and George, two friends who help her solve mysteries, weren't in this first book and it was interesting to notice how much the formality of language has changed since the book's publication in 1930 and revision in 1959. In this novel, eighteen year old Nancy is determined to prove that the will of a recently deceased man is not his latest will, a discovery which would improve the lives of people the man cared about and upset some greedy relatives. I chose this book for the "childhood favorite" category of a book challenge I'm doing this year.
The Thursday Murder Club, written by Richard Osman
Four residents of a retirement community take time each week to discuss cold cases together, just for fun. Then someone with professional ties to their community is murdered, followed by another murdered on the property, so they set to work trying to figure out who's responsible for the killings. They banter, play off each other's strengths, and figure out how to keep the police department on their side, even when their club is breaking protocol and laws. I chose this book for the "mystery novel" category of a book challenge I'm doing this year.
p. 125, It's great to be the fastest runner, but not when you're running in the wrong direction.
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