Hello again!
How’s the weather where you are?
It’s summertime here, so the sun is out, and the temperature is excellent, at least for me.
This week was busy at work, but an overall productive reading week with books from different genres.
Here is my reading list from this week:
Exes and O’s by Amy Lea
3 stars
It plays on the trope of closed proximity, and as such, I couldn’t really see why and how the relationship turned deep. However, it did portray a healthy example of communicating in a relationship.
Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese
4 stars
At the heart of this book is the power of finding/having a sense of belonging and having the courage to start again. It does so by detailing the life of a hockey player over the span of 20 years and how the experience of colonialism and residential schools affected him.
There are many trigger warnings: abuse, sexual assault, rape, racism, racial slur, alcoholism, suicide and death.
The scarlet letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
3 stars
This year part of my reading goals is to read more classic literature. There is no particular reason why. After finishing high school, I had no literature classes that assigned old classics. I want to dissociate classic literature from “school” and “academia” and find books in this category I can enjoy. Unfortunately, there were more parts that I didn’t enjoy than I did.
The chances that I would not have finished this book if I was reading it and not listening to it is very, very high. The writing was interesting in that it was overly complicated. I kept thinking, “there is a much easier way to say this”.
(I am very grateful I did not have to read this for school.)
The book is progressive for its time, with several empowering commentaries about how women should have autonomy for themselves. However, I don’t know if one can argue that it was overall empowering as tragedy befalls the characters at the end due to their affair, implying to readers at the time the fate of such an act.
Three stars might be a high rating for a book I didn’t really enjoy, but there were moments when I did, and I was initially very invested in the plot. Likewise, I liked how the narrator spoke to the readers at times throughout the book.