I'll be honest. Picking my best and worst books for this past year was difficult. I read only forty-three books, making my selection too small to choose from. It took me a while to compile my lists. In fact, my plan was to upload this on Friday when we first made the blog. But that never happened since I couldn't even figure out what books I wanted to mention until Monday night. Alas, here they are: Dom's Best Books of 2016 (worst to come later).
NUMBER 5
Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls
Pages: 282
What's it about?: A boy from Idaho saves up enough money to buy two hounds and he teaches them how to be great hunting dogs.
Favorite Quote: "I'm sure the red fern has grown and has completely covered the two little mounds. I know it is still there, hiding its secret beneath those long, red leaves, but it wouldn't be hidden from me for part of my life is buried there, too."
This was a reread. The first time I read this book was sixth grade. Years later, I forgot everything that had happened other than the fact I remember crying. I picked this up again and was done within less than a week. I'm just going to saw it now: Any book that causes me to give a physical emotion gets brownie points from me. This book caused actual tears to stream down my face even though I was in a very public area and people were staring.
When it comes to the writing of this novel, it is a tad mediocre, but one has to remember how old the target audience is. The fact that I read this before helped me bring my mind back easier. I thought it was a wonderful story about a child and his dogs. The love shown throughout the novel is a love I think many dog owners can relate too. This book is an excellent example of animals having souls as well. It was clear the dogs loved Billy, and it was also clear they loved one another.
It's difficult to talk more about this book without giving away the ending. I have a feeling many of you have read this book already, but I'll hold off on the spoilers just in case. After all, my dad spoiled the ending of The Strange Case of Dr, Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and his excuse was, "I thought everyone knew it!" Completely ruined the books for me (but that's for another blog).
NUMBER 4
The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling
Pages: 503
What's it about?: A well-honored man dies and the town reacts. Some people have trouble with their parents, others with themselves, and others with the entire town.
Favorite Quote: "By the time Kay and Gaia arrived, and the police decided to force their way in, (insert name) had achieved her only ambition: she had joined her brother where nobody could part them."
Like I said above, if a book can cause a physical reaction out of me, then it gets brownie points. This was another book that made me cry my damn eyes out in the middle of a public space.
I've seen other reviews of this book and I can't understand the hate it gets. I will say that the book starts off very slow. The first 200-300 pages are all about characterization and setting you up for the ending. But I still don't think this book deserves some of the hate it gets. I also want to say this is not meant to be read as a Harry Potter novel. Please stay away from that mindset.
Why do I like this book? For many reasons.
1. Each character has their own distinctive personality. Usually when a book has a multitude of characters, I stay clear. Most of the time the characters all blend into one another and you can't tell them apart. But Rowling does a great job here. Just by descriptions alone I could tell when Krystal was doing something or when Suhkvinder was the one talking. I never got mixed up once and I think Rowling deserves some praise for this.
2. Characterization. I have never loved or hated characters as much as I did while reading this book. The more you learned about certain characters, the more you either wanted to hug them and tell them everything was going to be alright or the more you wanted to punch them. An example of a character I love is Krystal. In the very beginning she came off as someone who is difficult to deal with and I actually didn't like her right away. But then Rowling explored her life and I wanted to cry at each chapter. An example of a character I hated was Simon. I didn't hate him because of bad writing. No. The writing was so good that you knew Rowling wants you to hate him. If someone like him were real I don't know what I'd do.
3. Exploration. Rowling explored many realistic situations such as self-harm, domestic abuse, drugs, teenage sex, etc. These could easily offend people if written the wrong way, but I thought Rowling did an excellent job. It's also just nice to see someone acknowledge that these things do happen and they don't pretend that they don't. The book seemed very realistic with all of these things.
The last chapter was about my favorite character. I was a mess in that library. Please read this book so I have someone to cry with.
NUMBER 3
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Pages: 522
What's it about?: Black maids are working for white families in 1960s Jackson, Mississippi. People want a change, and two black maids and one white woman are the ones to push for the start of it.
Favorite Quote: "I ain't burnin' no chicken."
Another book that caused some tears to stream down my face. I realized the older I get, the easier it is to make me cry.
I don't really have any complaints about this book. Admittedly, I was a bit worried about how the dialect of the maids would portray them. In the end, I thought the dialect was an excellent choice. It helped lot when it came to voice inside my head reading in their accents. Also, near the "About" section at the end of the book the author says she had this idea from her own Help growing up. I thought this contributed a lot to the dialect.
The characterization in this book was so well done. Each character had their own distinct personality. I fell in love with Aibileen right away, Minny's sassiness killed me (in a good way), I applauded Skeeter throughout the entire store (Minny and Aibileen as well), and some characters I wanted to slap in the face. Celia I wanted to slap for being so aloof. Elizabeth was such a follower and bad mother. I've never despised a character as much as I despised Hilly. But like with Simon above, I didn't hate her because of bad writing. The writing was so good that the author made you think she was real. Hilly made me so angry that I wanted to destroy her. AND MAE MOBLEY WAS JUST THE CUTEST THING THAT WAS TOO PRECIOUS FOR THIS WORLD!
This is one of those books I'll always hold close to my heart.
NUMBER 2
Everything is Illuminated by Jonathon Safran Foer
Pages: 276
What's it about?: A man goes on the hunt for the woman who saved his grandfather during WWII with the help of a Ukrainian family.
Favorite Quote: "I don't think that there are any limits to how excellent we could make life seem."
Surprisingly, no tears for this one. But at one point I did have to put the book down so I could take a breather out of pure shock.
I'm going to be honest: I actually was not the biggest fan of this book when I first start reading it. The style of the narration was very confusing for me. There aren't any quotation marks. When it's Alex's point of view, everything is in one giant paragraph and sometimes I had to pretend to know who was talking. In Jonathan's (the character) point of view, the dialogue was separate as usual but he used italics rather than quotation marks. My natural instincts was to think of these as thoughts.
This style of writing took some getting used to, but once I got it down, I couldn't put down the book. Foer had interesting ways of dropping subtle hints about what happened at what parts and many parts of the book made me laugh out loud (Sammy Davis Junior Junior is possibly one of my favorite characters). I'm also a World War II junkie, which is what a lot of this book was about. The sexual scenes were a bonus I guess. Not because I like sex scenes. Just because they were so random I couldn't help but laughed. They were random but somehow fit well.
The big reason this book is so high on my list is because of the end. This book did not go in the direction I was thinking it would go. But I'm not disappointed. Alex's grandfather tells the story about his friend and what happened to him. He told it in one paragraph, but the paragraph was five pages long with little to no punctuation. The voice in my head sounded like it was in a panic which, given what was happening, was what I think Foer was going for. When this chapter was done I had to put the book down for a few minutes.
The ending made me scream. Can't say why. No spoilers!
NUMBER 1
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
Pages: 706
What's it about?: A family moves into a house and discover the inside grows. Soon, the inside of the house is bigger than it is on the outside.
Favorite Quote: "We all create stories to protect ourselves."
I know I gave this book only 4 stars on Goodreads compared to the 5 stars of the other books on this list but oh my God.
1. This book scared the shit out of me at times.
2. There are two stories going on at once.
3. The footnotes made this seem like it was an actual essay about a real place.
4. Extremely stylistic. Chapter 9 was about a labyrinth so Danielewski made the style of the footnotes a labyrinth. He made you go back an fourth constantly and from page to page without a specific order. If someone was at the bottom of the stairs, the narration was at the bottom of the page. Top of the stairs, the narration was at the top of the page. When a rope was snapping, the words spread across the two pages and the spaces bigger and bigger until it was one letter per page. At one point you need a mirror to read the book.
5. Johnny's essay on the word "fuck".
6. You don't realize how terrifying a chapter is until you finish and you think about it for a few minutes.
7. Letters from Johnny's mom were included. You couldn't tell what was real and what was a hallucination.
8. The characters Zampano and Johnny seemed very real. At times I forgot this book was fake and I would want to meet Zampano to congratulate him on what he's accomplished. But then you remember he's not a real writer and neither is Johnny and neither are the editors who correct some of Johnny's mistakes.
I wanted to put this book down but at the same time I couldn't. This was definitely a heavy read. Took me about a month. But I'm so tempted to go on this journey again. I wish I had this guy's creativity.
And that's all I have for you, folks! Stay tuned for my Worst Books of 2016!
-Dom
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