The Kite Runner

by Khaled Hosseini

You’ve all been anxiously waiting to hear what I thought, haven’t you? Well…I’m kind of undecided.

By the end of the first paragraph I was telling the Romgi that this was a really well-written book. On the whole, I love books that catch my attention so quickly, whether with the plot or the writing. By the end of the first chapter, I was hooked. The story was fascinating.

So why am I undecided? Good question. It isn’t because of the uncomfortable (and heartbreaking) much-talked-about rape scene. It isn’t because of the backdrop of Afghanistan politics and wartime. I’m not exactly sure what it’s from…when I finished reading I felt some emotion that seemed to be a combination of (but not the same as) depression, heartache, sadness, loneliness, sickness…I’ve been reading A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier at the same time, and maybe it just gave me too negative of a view of humanity.

I think that’s it — how am I supposed to save the world when the world is like The Kite Runner?

Still, despite that, I’d recommend it. Like I said, I’m torn!

Tanglewreck

by Jeanette Winterson

I’m not an expert on the details and specifics of time travel, and unfortunately, Tanglewreck expected me to be. Although the main character was an 11 year old girl who struggled with the explanations given about how and why there were disturbances in Time, it seemed that Winterson felt her readers should easily grasp the convoluted scientific jargon. I didn’t. I felt dumb. And reading a children’s book should not make you feel dumb.

That wasn’t my only complaint. Silver, the book’s heroine, and the other main characters, weren’t sufficiently developed during the book to make me sympathize with them or even really hate the bad guys. Tanglewreck had an interesting premise, but I never got the impression that the author had put enough thought into the story; the title seemed insignificant, because Winterson failed to emphasize its importance.

If nothing else, Tanglewreck boosts my total number of pages read for the year, but I didn’t get much else out of it.

The Eyre Affair

by Jasper Fforde

In case you’re wondering, no, I did not pick this book simply because the author’s name is Jasper. (Although, if I had chosen on the basis of his name, having a last name that starts with “Ff” didn’t hurt. How cool is that?)

The Eyre Affair is a quirky combination of literary references, time travel, politics, and detective work. If these things seem incongruous to you, read the book. Fforde (heh heh) does a fantastic job of blending everything together. I admit, some of the time travel stuff escaped me, but I have a tendency to skim long paragraphs describing the intricate hows and whys of time-space continuums, so it’s really my fault. Besides, it would be hard to make time travel more confusing than in Tanglewreck (dumb).

The main character and heroine of the book is, no kidding, named Thursday Next. Apparently Fforde (heh heh) has written several novels in which she is the main character; when I finish another 50 or so of the books on my list, I may read another Thursday Next novel. But only maybe.