Writer's Block: Book worms unite!
Nov. 28th, 2009 02:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackwabbit[Error: unknown template qotd]
Best:
This is hard to answer, as there are many, so I will do the ones I specifically remember reading for the first time:
1-Huckleberry Finn. I was nine when I read this book, and I had never encountered anyone so cool in all my life. I wanted to be Huck more than anything ever. I mean, he was cool enough to fake his own death. That takes balls, man.
2-White Fang. I was nine when I read this one, too. I was truly drawn into this animal's struggle and how he was only what he'd been made. (Social Darwinism FTW!)
3-Um...having a hard time here...Ender's Game. Dude! Who didn't want to be Ender? EDIT: My Side of the Mountain. Yeah, I wanted to be Sam, too. The whole running away and living on my own thing did it for me as a kid (I think I read this book at about thirteen years old), and as an adult nothing has grabbed me as well as these did when I was younger. Nothing has made me just yearn to be the character so much. But Ender's Game stays, too, and for the record, I read that at twenty-seven.
Worst:
1-The Great Gatsby. Just kill me. Kill me now rather than make me read this book. I thought maybe I just didn't get it as a kid, but no. I've tried to read it as an adult, and just...no. Never. Kill me now.
2-Wuthering Heights. If I'd rather death than read The Great Gatsby, I'd rather the most painful torture imaginable than read this. Worst. Book. Ever.
3-and as if one Bronte wasn't enough, I've got to go with the one book in school I couldn't finish. The one book I cheated on. The one book I Cliff Noted. Jane Eyre. I thought surely it couldn't be as bad as Wuthering Heights, and maybe it isn't, but after Emily nearly killed me, I wasn't going to give her sister the same chance. She had to prove to me she was worth it. She didn't. I gave her a sporting chance, but after a few chapters, I just couldn't finish it. Gone with the Wind falls into the rare "didn't finish" category, too. Read about half. It never got good.
Best:
This is hard to answer, as there are many, so I will do the ones I specifically remember reading for the first time:
1-Huckleberry Finn. I was nine when I read this book, and I had never encountered anyone so cool in all my life. I wanted to be Huck more than anything ever. I mean, he was cool enough to fake his own death. That takes balls, man.
2-White Fang. I was nine when I read this one, too. I was truly drawn into this animal's struggle and how he was only what he'd been made. (Social Darwinism FTW!)
3-Um...having a hard time here...Ender's Game. Dude! Who didn't want to be Ender? EDIT: My Side of the Mountain. Yeah, I wanted to be Sam, too. The whole running away and living on my own thing did it for me as a kid (I think I read this book at about thirteen years old), and as an adult nothing has grabbed me as well as these did when I was younger. Nothing has made me just yearn to be the character so much. But Ender's Game stays, too, and for the record, I read that at twenty-seven.
Worst:
1-The Great Gatsby. Just kill me. Kill me now rather than make me read this book. I thought maybe I just didn't get it as a kid, but no. I've tried to read it as an adult, and just...no. Never. Kill me now.
2-Wuthering Heights. If I'd rather death than read The Great Gatsby, I'd rather the most painful torture imaginable than read this. Worst. Book. Ever.
3-and as if one Bronte wasn't enough, I've got to go with the one book in school I couldn't finish. The one book I cheated on. The one book I Cliff Noted. Jane Eyre. I thought surely it couldn't be as bad as Wuthering Heights, and maybe it isn't, but after Emily nearly killed me, I wasn't going to give her sister the same chance. She had to prove to me she was worth it. She didn't. I gave her a sporting chance, but after a few chapters, I just couldn't finish it. Gone with the Wind falls into the rare "didn't finish" category, too. Read about half. It never got good.
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Date: Nov. 28th, 2009 08:59 pm (UTC)Add Stephanie Meyer's The Host to the list too. Very good premise, an alien race of symbiots taking us over by burrowing in our brains and taking over our thoughts and personalities but it was horribly executed. I couldn't finish it and neither could several people I lent it to. Total waste of $.
I just plain love anything Mark Twain wrote. From Huck Finn to A Connecticut Yankee and the less well known Puddin Head Wilson. Biting social satire disguised with lots of adventure and humor.
Just read Ender's Game last year and loved it. Who wouldn't want to play games in zero G? Lots of thoughts snuck in about psychological manipulation, leadership and plain old "lets get the bad guys who may take over earth" thrown in.
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Date: Nov. 28th, 2009 10:29 pm (UTC)However, I was not as brave as Huckleberry Finn. Dammit.
Oh, dude! I just remembered another book! I should change it out for Ender's Game! My Side of the Mountain. Oh, I wanted to be Sam, too! Catching a theme here?
It was hard for me to answer that question, because I loved a lot of books, but I picked those that just made me yearn to be in them more than anything, and My Side did that, too. Sigh...