Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

from goodreads

2.5 stars

I know that we all know this already, but reading is amazing. We can learn so much. Our minds can be opened to new worlds and ideas. Fiction is especially good at this. Society is easy to explore and think about when reading a fiction story. When we see what the characters are going through you can get the sense that you are not alone or you can learn about differences or different perspectives on common problems.

Reading is never a waste of time. No matter the story we can learn something about ourselves. It could be a deep philosophical things or it could be as simple as learning you don't enjoy a particular genre. With all the different authors and genres and stories we will always be fed and nourished and hopefully all have a more broad view of the world.


Synopsis

This book chronicles the happenings of the Stephanides family, and more specifically the defect on the 5th chromosome that has gone down the line and created Callie/Cals hermaphroditism. Going from Turkey to the streets of Detroit, this is an interesting look at family, what makes us male and female and belonging.

My Thoughts

Well this book was definitely a surprise. When it was first put on the book club list I thought I was going to be reading a quaint book set in a county in England. So this was definitely not the story I was expecting.

I really enjoyed watching the evolution of this family. The grandparents tale was quite interesting. I also liked watching the evolution of Detroit. The transformation of the city during the different eras was quite interesting.

The subject was also interesting. What makes us male, what makes us female? Hermaphrodites are not often the main character of a book and I found it interesting learning about the different kinds, what they have to go through. It is not often talked about so it was nice to see it put into the forefront. It definitely helps to open a dialogue about the subject and get us thinking about it.

What I didn't like was just how boring the majority of the book was. I loved the grandparents story, I loved Cal talking about his life in Germany (this is once he is way older) and I liked the part of the story once they realized something was not quite right and they were going to doctors, and experts to figure out what was happening and Cal made a decision of what he wanted for his life. Everything else, was just boring. It seemed that the author had so many different characters and storylines that he was trying to do justice to that it just got drawn out and wasn't all that interesting (at least for me). There were a few times that I wanted to just stop reading as it was not holding my interest, but I trudged through because I knew they would be talking about Cal's condition eventually and so I kept going.

This is a book that did have an interesting premise, and that premise will stay with me for a while as it put in mind some thought provoking questions and ideas that will be fun to mull over. The rest of the book and most of the characters will not stay with me and, in that way, made it not all that great.

Matched Series by AllyCondie

from goodreads

3 stars

The end of school is two weeks away. Lately I have been researching different programs at our library, different books to keep the girls entertained and figuring out my own summer reading list. What I am discovering is there is so much choice. Everything looks good, and it is hard to pare things down. I want to read everything now, which would be an awesome super power, but is not a realistic option. Trying to find the perfect summer read, or the next great book for the kids is a hard undertaking. I have to be careful not to build up my expectations too much or else it will be a let down. Oh the horror of too many books and too little time!

What are you looking forward to reading this summer?

Synopsis

Cassia lives in a society that seems perfect. But when a glitch happens she realizes that there are limits to what she can do, what she can learn, and who she can love. The fabric of her society starts to unravel as she tries to figure things out and save/be with the person she loves.

My Thoughts

This was a pretty average series. The premise had a lot of potential and seemed interesting, but I don't think it lived up to its hype. It had parts that I liked and parts that just seemed meh. The first book did have a Giver vibe. Condie gave us a detailed society with things really thought out.

As the series progressed the story went in directions I wasn't expecting. I found the last two books to be such a contrast from the first book that it was hard to make the leap at first. I found that it dealt with too many abstracts. I wish I knew more about who lived on the fringes. It was confusing to know how they fit into the society. Not all of them were hiding from the society but, they weren't part of it either. It was confusing. I think it would have been helpful to have a map of the country as well. They talked about different provinces and cities, but it was hard to picture.

I found Cassia and Ky's relationship to be a bit hard to believe at first. She talked about her best friend Xander and how she was glad she was matched with him. But when she starts to think that Ky was an option all of the sudden he is all she wants. How could she fall so fast and so deeply? It seemed that Ky was always on the fringe of her radar. How could they be so intense? It just didn't seem believable.

While I liked how the series ended, and I liked it wasn't like all the other dystopians with lots of guns and violence, by the end I was reading just to finish it. I really didn't care about the characters and the society. I just found it dull. All the references to art work and poems and how those things were commodities got confusing and abstract.

This series would be good for getting your feet wet in YA dystopians but it was not my favourite series. It was just a bit dull for my liking.

The Romanov Sisters: The Lost Lives of the Daughters of Nicholas and Alexandra by Helen Rappaport

from goodreads

2 stars

Well I think life is finally going to settle down. I will hopefully get more reading done than I have in the past few weeks and my schedule will be as such that I can be more consistent with my reviews. And why is this? I had my baby! YEA!!! We had a boy and he will be known in my blogging world as Mr. S.

It will be interesting to discover the differences between the girls and this boy. I am so used to dresses and pink and sparkles and dolls it will be cool to discover the boy side of the world. So far he does much the same as the girls or any other baby. He eats, poops and sleeps. Ah the life of a new born.

Synopsis

This is a look at the lives of the daughters of the last Tsar of Russia, Nicholas II. It gives background on their parents lives, especially their mother and also looks a bit at Russian society during their life.

My Thoughts

This book was not what I was expecting or hoping for. I was expecting more information on the girls to really get a sense of who they were. Instead there were lots of names, lots of discussion surrounding the tsarina's health, and basically the same information being toted around about them, how they were simple, naive and secluded.

I know that information about the sisters, especially primary sources, would be harder to come by as their journals and letters would have been destroyed or lost or perhaps were incomplete, but I was still hoping for more of a complete picture. Instead of being the focus of the book, as the title would seem to indicate, the Romanov Sisters seemed to be in the background of their own story and not the star. So much attention was given to their brother and his ailments, their parents and others. I think I know more about them then the sisters.

Perhaps if I knew more about the time period and more about Russian history during the war and revolution I might have appreciated any new information that Rappaport found out about the sisters. But, as a newbie I didn't know what was already common knowledge and what was ground breaking so couldn't appreciate it.

I also found that the ending of the book was rather fast. The last few chapters were actually interesting and dealt with the time that they were under house arrest before their execution. I understand that the author has written a book that deals with their last days in detail, and thus, didn't want to go into the same detail in this book. But it would have nice to have a bit more than what she gave. One second they were in a new place, the next paragraph they were being lead to a basement and were killed. For a slow moving narrative, this chain of events was abrupt and quick and left me with a sense of "what just happened?"

On the whole this book does not give history or biographies a great name. While the subject matter should have been interesting, the delivery was not there. I probably would have stopped reading it if it wasn't for book club and if I didn't have the hope of perhaps learning something more, something interesting.

I do appreciate the tragedy of their lives. I wish that they could have lived more. It is such a tragic and sad way to end your life. I guess that is what will remain with me from this book. The sense of tragic loss. And loss that could have been avoided perhaps if their parents and those around them could have gotten out of their old ways of doing things and seen how the world was changing. It is sad.