As many of you know, I read a lot of books. I read on the train to and from work, I read in the evenings, on the weekends and before I got to bed. Sometimes I have more than one book on the go at a time.
Recently I have been in a book slump. It's been a while before I've read a book that really interested me, or blew me away.
Just before Christmas, I got, "The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry," out of the library. This book had been reviewed by 662 people on Amazon, and had over 4.5/5 star rating. Reviewers wrote things such as, "A MUST READ!" And, "Moving and profound." So I thought I'd give it a try.
The reader follows Harold Fry, an introverted and reclusive retiree, as he walks across England in a pilgrimage to save an old friend. As Harold progresses through his journey, he reflects on his marriage, his son, and his relationship with the friend he is determined to save. The many characters that Harold meets along the way help give him perspective on the life he has lived and the choices he has made. In a parallel story line, we also see Harold's wife's reaction to his pilgrimage, and her own reflections on their marriage.
This was a 3-star book at most for me. I felt like I was slogging through hundreds of pages of loneliness and unhappiness. While the premise of the book was interesting and unique, I found it difficult to connect to Harold and his wife.
For Christmas, I received J.K. Rowling's, "That Casual Vacancy." I read every Harry Potter book with excitement and anticipation, and I was looking forward to seeing what Rowling would deliver. This book had over 3200 reviews on Amazon, but only an average 3/5 star rating.
The book synopsis summarized the book as: When Barry Fairbrother dies unexpectedly in his early forties, the little town of Pagford is left in shock. Pagford is, seemingly, an English idyll, with a cobbled market square and an ancient abbey, but what lies behind the pretty façade is a town at war. Rich at war with poor, teenagers at war with their parents, wives at war with their husbands, teachers at war with their pupils…. Pagford is not what it first seems. And the empty seat left by Barry on the town’s council soon becomes the catalyst for the biggest war the town has yet seen. Who will triumph in an election fraught with passion, duplicity and unexpected revelations? Blackly comic, thought-provoking and constantly surprising, The Casual Vacancy is J.K. Rowling’s first novel for adults.
This book was nothing like Harry Potter. In fact, I think Rowling diverged too far from her Harry Potter roots. I was nearly a third of the way into the book before I could separate the "good" characters from the "bad." And even then, the "good" characters weren't necessarily good. Each of the families involved in this story had their foibles, but when combined, the dysfunction in all of them was a little over the top. To list a few of this issues dealt with, drug addiction, child neglect, self-mutilation, rape, anxiety disorder, physical abuse, sociopathic tendencies, narcissism, racism, pedophilia, theft, elitism... I could go on.
I didn't dislike the book, but I'd rate it about a 3.5/5. I liked it enough that I'd read another novel by J.K. Rowling.
And finally... I come to "Wild" by Cheryl Strayed. Tom's grandma, Ethel, received this book for Christmas, and after I read the book flap synopsis, I put a hold on it at the library. This book has over 1600 Amazon reviews, and a solid 4/5 star rating.
At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life. With no experience or training, driven only by blind will, she would hike more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State—and she would do it alone. Told with suspense and style, sparkling with warmth and humor, Wild powerfully captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her.
If you have been reading this blog for any length of time, then you know that my husband and I have done a 35-55km hike each year for the last four years. This is nothing compared to hiking more than a thousand miles of the PCT-- but I was interested to read this woman's trials and tribulations on the trail.
I am about 1/4 through the book right now, and I'm debating whether I should keep going.
Ethel, have you started reading this book yet?
The first few chapters are about how her mother died young of cancer, and how Cheryl consoled herself by cheating on her husband (sleeping indiscriminately with any man who showed interest in her), and shooting up heroin. The sections describing her woeful, dangerously unprepared state for the trail are disconcerting. I found myself particularly disgusted when I read, "I returned to my camp, set up my stove, and attempted to make myself a hot meal, my first on the trail, but couldn't get my stove to sustain a flame, no matter what I tried. I pulled the little instruction book out, read the troubleshooting section, and learned that I'd filled the stove's canister with the wrong kind of gas. I'd filled it with unleaded fuel instead of the special white gas that it was meant to have, and now the generator was clogged, its tiny pan blacked with soot by my efforts."
None of this is "uplifting," "funny," "devastating," or "glorious," as the praise on the back of the book would have me believe. I will continue to slog through my slump, and hope that "Wild" surprises me in the end.
I'm not sure what titles I should add to my reading list. If anyone has any suggestions, fire away!
