Books read in July:
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman:
4 stars.
A book with an ending I didn’t expect which always makes reading more enjoyable. The story of a woman with an ordinary life these days. But her life wasn’t always ordinary. The book deals with many different themes including loneliness and was a spectacular read.
Favourite Quote: “It’s SpongeBob, Eleanor,” he said, speaking very slowly and clearly as though I were some sort of idiot. “SpongeBob SquarePants?” A semi-human bath sponge with protruding front teeth! On sale as if it were something completely unremarkable! For my entire life, people have said that I’m strange, but really, when I see things like this, I realize that I’m actually relatively normal.”
Munmun by Jesse Andrews:
3 stars.
The writing style used in this book does take some getting used to. It’s a little like a beginners version of the language used in A Clockwork Orange, but easier to figure out the meanings to words. I think the writing style is meant to be as if the main character Warner is writing the book himself, as he is illiterate at the beginning of the book, it makes sense that he would write phonetically, e.g. in the book six is written as sicks, while many words are spaced out or pushed together as Warner is used to hearing words said this way instead of writing them.
The book is set in a world where the amount of money you have directly corresponds to how tall you are, so the poorest are the size of rats, while the richest are giants. The story is an interesting look at society and how people with a ton of money just don’t have to worry about the same things as others – like cat attacks in the book. While I did empathise with the characters the plot didn’t pull me in the way I had hoped and the main reason I finished the book was because of the characters rather than the plot or the writing.
Favourite Quote: “”Yeah it’s true, Lifty is the secret home of geniuses,” I said. “Yesterday during Generic Distress Response three guys working together invented a brandnew way to get trapped under a bus.””
July TBR:
The Island by M.A. Bennett: A retelling of The Lord of The Flies by William Goldman. Although I had to read The Lord of The Flies at school and declared I hated it at the time and haven’t read it since. I am interested to see what a modern retelling of the story is like and whether it’s the general plot I disliked or whether it was just that I had to read it in school.
The Lottery by Shirley Jackson: A set of short stories by Shirley Jackson. I have previously only read her novel We Have Always Lived in The Castle so want to read more of her work.
ChristyESWriter 