A Separate Peace by John Knowles

SPOILERS BE HERE

Let's cut to the chase: I didn't like it. I can see why others like it but it wasn't for me. I think listening to the audiobook may have been a mistake here—the narrator wasn't very compelling so my mind drifted quite a bit—but I still don't think I would have liked it very much if I had read it.

The characters didn't resonate with me one bit. I thought they were boring, fairly one-dimensional, and I just plain didn't like them. Events seemed to come out of nowhere too. That one guy (I don't have the book so can't look up names and don't care enough to Google them) going AWOL and suddenly having mental health issues. The main guy admitting to Phineas he jostled him out of the tree but then reneging and trying to convince everyone otherwise. Phineas DYING. I get it, that's the point of the book. Parallels between war changing people and them experiencing that at school, blah blah blah. It just didn't strike a chord with me. I can't think of a single part I even liked.

Completed: 30 November 2020

Rating: 2/5 (only because I can see the appeal even if it didn't appeal to me)

Recommend: No

Comments

The Royal We by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan

**SPOILERS BE HERE** I am whelmed. I'm also ignoring that this is a fictionalized account of William and Kate. The beginning of the book was great! I was super into it and it was cheesy cute, which was exactly what I needed after reading the very dry Presidency of William Howard Taft . I love how Bex and Nick bonded over a trashy TV show and Twinkies. They were so cute together. But it went south pretty quickly after Part 1. This book was just so long . It does span eight years, but I couldn't have told you that because the time jumps were difficult to follow. Has a year passed? Have three? Who knows? What could have been the most interesting parts were completely skipped over—Bex goes home to finish university but it's only briefly mentioned. Visit the long-distance relationship and her decision to move to England! Her father dies but we barely get to see her grieving (not due to a time jump). What about her settling into a new country full time? Or her job, which is ju...

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo (Translated by Norman Denny)

**SPOILERS BE HERE** Last year, I decided to read War and Peace and Les Miserables in 2020. They're both around 360 chapters long, so reading two chapters a day would enable me to finish them both by the end of the year. I succeeded! I actually finished War and Peace in April (cuz COVID) and then waited until July to start Les Miserables. I've also already read Les Miserables twice before now, but this was my first time reading this translation. I prefer the Fahnestock/MacAfee/Wilbour translation; I wasn't a fan of how this one cut out two sections and added them to the end. Oh wait! I've read an abridged version, too, one based on the 1998 film with Liam Neeson. That one is terrible; unabridged or bust! Ok so maybe not unabridged or bust. If you had asked me about 10 years ago (the last time I read it), I would have said that, but now I think some sections could be reduced or cut out. Those two that were slapped onto the end weren't very...

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

SPOILERS BE HERE I really wanted to enjoy this book, but it fell flat for me. I 100% believe part of that was due to me listening to it rather than reading it—I drifted in and out and couldn't keep the characters straight, specifically Izzy and Lexie; something about their names is too similar. I think the plot was interesting, but actions were random and didn't make sense. Why did Mia keep Pearl? I never felt like that decision was fully explored—she just up and left. And why did Izzy (...not Lexie, right?) set fires in the house? That seemed like such an extreme response to the things that happened. The characters were not fleshed out enough. I also felt like I was being led a little too much to sympathize with certain characters and dislike others. I said the plot was interesting; it was also clunky. It jumped around from one thing to another so sporadically that it felt like a different book at times. It could have been handled a lot more smoothly by cutting some of the ...

Manuscript Musing

Search This Blog