Not as bad as I thought!

The Child in Time is about a kidnapped little girl.  I thought it was going to be extremely difficult to read.  I was pleasantly surprised, however, that it wasn't as sad or horrible as I thought.  Yes, the main characters are grieving and go through some real difficulties, but there is a message of hope at the end that is very nice.  I also liked the intrigue and thoughts about the nature of time that were woven throughout the story.

This is one of Ian McEwan's earlier novels and it is interesting to see how his style developed over the years.  This book was not too bad.

Happy! Happy! Happy!

Fuzz goes around saying "happy!" sometimes.  I don't think he necessarily knows what it means, but it is awfully cute to watch him toddle around saying that he is happy.

After a slog through some really boring, slow books, I was glad that The Charwoman's Daughter was quick, interesting, and yes, happy.  The mother and daughter in the book really love each other and I enjoyed watching their relationship develop.  The mother of 6 next door also loves her children fiercely and does everything in her power to give them the best life - even if it means taking in a lodger, leading to much more work on her part.  The book even had a happy ending!  I liked this one.

Bo-ring.

Pea has really gotten into the Ivy and Bean series of children's books lately.  They are cute.  Bean's way of proclaiming everything "Bo-ring!" has sneaked its way into Pea's lexicon as well.  Now I am going to borrow the term.

Because, friends, The Charterhouse of Parma is boring.  Boring.  Booooo-ring.  I just couldn't get into it.  On the surface it seemed like a story, anyway, but I just did not care about the characters, I couldn't ever figure out who was who, and it was about 10 times as long as it needed to be.  I had to force myself to read a chapter a day just so I would be sure to get through it.   I'm glad to be moving on!

Books 151-160

As I continue my slog through The Charterhouse of Parma, thought I would update the list.

151. The Child in Time by Ian McEwan (1987)
152. The Childermass by Wyndham Lewis (1928)
153. Chocky by John Wyndham (1968)
154. Choke by Chuck Palahniuk (2001)
155. Christ Stopped at Eboli by Carlo Levy (1945)
156. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (1843)
157. Chrome Yellow [or Crome Yellow?] by Aldous Huxley (1921)
158. Cider With Rosie by Laurie Lee (1959)
159. The Cider House Rules by John Irving (1985)
160. Cigarettes by Harry Matthews (1987)

A long, long, long time ago...

It's been a slow reading year for me.  Something about the ages of my kids and the various activities and responsibilities that they and we are involved in makes it difficult to get reading time in.  (Or, it could be Plants vs. Zombies on my iPad.  But we'll go with the former.)

Chaireas and Kallirhoe was a short and relatively easy read.  I can't really explain why it took me so long to get into it.  The story is pretty formulaic.  Although I suppose that you can't really say a book written so many hundreds of years ago (in ancient Greece) is formulaic if it was one of the first of that style.  Basically - boy meets girl, they fall in love, get married, he accidentally really hurts her and everyone thinks she is dead, she is buried, but alive and is saved by a bunch of grave robbers who carry her off to Persia and various shenanigans ensue.  But all works out in the end, thankfully.

One sad aspect of the story was that Kallirhoe had this baby (and it was Chaireas') and she basically abandons it with Dionysos, the dude who bought her as a slave and fell in love with her) to go back with Chaireas.  I don't think she ever told Chaireas about his son.  The son was like a plot point and then an afterthought.

All in all, I guess I am glad I read this, but it is not one that will leave long lasting memories with me.  It is definitely cool to read a novel written so many centuries ago, though.

...you're breakin' my heart.

Fanny Burney's novel Cecilia is over 1000 pages long.  The beginning was really interesting.  The main character, Cecilia, is a beautiful, smart, thoughtful girl with a huge fortune.  The only catch is that to retain her fortune, anyone she marries must take her last name rather than Cecilia change her name to match her husband's.  (Interesting twist for 1789.)   The first portion of the novel has her staying with a spendthrift couple who she lends money to and then loses as the husband kills himself to escape debts.

Then things get very slow.  Cecilia kind of decides that she likes this aristocrat, Delvile.  His parents, though they like the idea of Cecilia's fortune, are horrified by the idea that their only son would do anything other than carry on the family name.  Hundreds of pages go by and they go back and forth, nothing being resolved.  It struck me how the mutual interest between Cecilia and Delvile is downplayed.  Cecilia seems happy to be single and seems to sort of choose Delvile not out of any strong feelings but more because she doesn't like the alternative suitors and feels like a life with Delvile would not be too bad.  I am not sure whether this is because of the time at which Burney was writing where declarations of undying love would be seen as gauche or offensive, or we are supposed to consider Cecilia's character as kind of above romantic love.

Finally, 950 pages or so into the book, things get interesting again, and our heroine is able to be married to Delvile, and a Delvile relative leaves Cecilia some money because they like her so much and feel bad that she had to give up her fortune.  All's well that ends well in Cecilia-land.

I liked this book, though it was kind of slow in parts.  I like learning about upper class society from these times.  I can't believe how long it took me to read it though!

Sad reflections on The Cement Garden.

I can definitely appreciate the quality of writing in The Cement Garden, Ian McEwan's first novel.  It is intense, interesting, and I found that I could not put the book down once I got to the middle of the book.  It is also an incredibly sad story and I wished that I had not read parts of it.

The story is about 4 children ranging in age from 4 to 17.  Their mother dies and they are left on their own.  They fear foster care, so they inter their mother in their basement and go about attempting to live on their own without an adult.  The story is just so sad.

As a parent, I really felt so bad for the children and that poor little 4 year old crying for his mama.  It really made me think about some of the things I fear the most.

All in all, an excellent book, but I'm not really that glad that I read it.