Descriptions are so 2002

Maybe it's because I can't write them without sounding cheesy. Maybe it's because I have repressed ADD. Whatever the reason, I am not into drawn out descriptions. If this makes me sound immature, I guess I have to sacrifice that and I recognize that descriptions, when tastefully done, can be lovely and poetic. I also believe, however, that you should not have to read the same page four times simply because you couldn't tell what was going on between the descriptions of the sunset and how it reflected off the lagoon.

I'm pretty sure that Lord of the Flies was beautifully written. It was well crafted and theorized and visualized. It was an interesting look at human beings. It was also very descriptive which, at times, was beautiful. At other times, my eyes glazed over and I had to put the book down before I fell asleep, as I am close to doing now. *yawn*

It was also a bit depressing. Pre-pubescent boys can be a bit disheartening. And thinking about how quickly one would use their humanity in some such situation is scary. But I would hope that my personal version of LotF would look more like Flight 29 Down which, in case you're oblivious to obscure Disney channel shows, was a relatively terrible children's television show that I loved about a group of high school aged kids getting stranded on a South Pacific Island.

I can think of nothing else to right and it's getting late so I will just go. In conclusion, Lord of the Flies was interesting  and intriguing but a bit too descriptive for my taste.

Next book is Persuasion by Jane Austen. I'm excited for this one, I must say.

I'm not feeling cultured

In the past, old books have made me feel sophisticated, worldly, cultured. At this point in my project, I'm feeling at a loss for words. Sort of like the world isn't as bright. How about a quick recap...

To Kill a Mockingbird, while a great, heartwarming story with beautiful characters had themes of racism. I'm not against talking about the tough subjects in books but it's still a bit of a damper. Great story, well written novel, sort of makes you feel despair for human society. At the same time, I loved it for Scout's innocence and lovableness.

Wuthering Heights was supposedly a love story. It features Cathy and Heathcliff and their love which triumphs all, or so Bella says in Eclipse. Yeah, whatever. What I took from it was a terrible story, sans moral, driven by revenge and hate. Heathcliff does not do one nice thing in the novel and yet at the end you can't help feeling sorry for him. How can this be? He's a mean spirited monster whose only goal was to make everyone around him as miserable as he was. The best part of his existence was ***SPOILER ALERT*** when it ended. He was a freaking kidnapping manipulator. Jeez. Moving on.

Now we've got Lord of the Flies which I'm sure is an excellently written book but lacks the soft romantic charm I look for. I love witty, snappy dialogue be it Remy and Dexter from Sarah Dessen's This Lullaby or Elizabeth Bennet's snippy reply to a comment of Mr. Collins. LotF, starring a group of marooned pre-pubescent boys, is seriously lacking this. I'll get over it.

I'm starting to wonder, though, if this story is written to tell a story or to express a point. It all seems rather deep so far and while the characters are interesting enough I'm not too invested. And so I think that this is one of those lesson books and I'm sure it has some good story but the obvious themes can be distracting.

Oh well, we'll see.

Lord of the Gross Covers

I have procrastinated writing this blog long enough. The reason for that being that I hated Wuthering Heights and I don't know how to write a summarizing blog post that doesn't sound completely redundant. I've kind of said all I have to say about Wuthering Heights. Blah.

I'm going to go grab Eclipse so that I can read that part where Edward relates to Heathcliff. You will not notice my lack of presence.

Aha! I'm back. Yeah, I cannot leaf through that book looking for a single Heathcliff quotation. You will live without it or you will look it up on your own. The internet is a magical place, or so I hear.

Plus, I'm busy. Some people may say that watching Gilmore Girls does not equate to busy; I will differ here. I think I'm going to reread Eclipse. Parts of it, anyway. I don't like the parts with Jacob.

I love Jess.

My next book is Lord of the Flies. I am excited about this because three years ago someone told me it was her favourite book and I was going to read it. I got it out of the library and it sat on my shelf for three weeks and then I returned it. And now I have it again.

I am not excited about reading it because I got the gross cover. I wanted this cover:

I got this cover:

Ew. I don't want to be seen with this book. Plus, everyone who sees me reading it is going to think I'm reading it for school. I hate that. Yes, covers and people thinking I'm another schoolie is sort of vain, but there it is.

I have to go read a book with a gross pig on the cover. Seriously, what was the marketing department thinking? Oh yeah, let's put a bleeding pig on the cover. That'll make the kids buy 'em like hotcakes. Yum.