Friday, March 5, 2010

Book It 2010



I'm well on my way to accomplishing my goal of 52 books this year. I didn't want to restrict myself and make it one book per week...I was afraid I'd get behind and then never catch up. And I didn't want to set four books per month for the exact same reason. So I chose 52 books in one year. In 365 days I need to read 52 books. In the last two days I have finished number nine and #10. 

When I decided to pursue this adventure I had an idea of what kind of books I wanted to read. I also decided I needed to read the "high school classics" - those books that were required of us in high school (and maybe even middle school). This week's book in that category was The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger.

Maybe because I'm a 32-year-old woman or maybe because I never felt the anxiety/confusion that the main character, Holden Caulfield experiences in this book, I wasn't a huge fan of the novel.  I did some internet research on the book because I knew that it was a controversial book and I couldn't see why.  Many of the sites I visited mention the amount of profanity and sexual thoughts that Holden discusses as one of the big reasons the book is controversial.  Once again, I didn't see it that way but maybe as a 16- or 17-year-old in high school it would have been.  There were a few times through the book that I just sat and thought, "What?"  I did finish it but this isn't a book that will ever make it to my "must re-read" list.

That book took me more than a week to read.  I picked up Divine by Karen Kingsbury yesterday while on lunch break.  I sat down last night at 11:30 to read a bit before bed and at 2:00 (AM!) I decided I needed to put it down.  I read through 250+ pages just yesterday between 2pm and 2am (mostly from 11:30 - 2:00).  It is SUCH a good book.  Kingsbury writes inspirational books and this one was just as good as any others of hers that I've read. 

Divine is about Mary Madison, a girl who is abused from 10-years-old until she's in her mid-twenties.  Mary Madison is a modern day Mary Magdelene - the woman that cried outside of Jesus' empty tomb on the day of His resurrection.  Mary Magdelene faced seven demons and was saved from those demons by Jesus.  Mary Madison also faces seven demons and is saved from those demons by Jesus.  A definite page turner, I couldn't put the book down because I wanted to see where the story went to next.  As a mother, this was a hard book to read but I'm so glad I did.

Tonight I'm ready to pick up James Patterson's Kiss the Girls and I hope to finish it by Tuesday so I can get more books when these are all due.

2 comments:

  1. I read "Divine" last year. Great book!

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  2. I loved Catcher in the Rye. The reason that it was so shocking is that it was written in 1951. It pales in comparison to the things that are published these days. But, for it's time, it was very risque. That's not why I loved it. LOL. I think it was the first thing in high school that sounded the way people talked. It was so much easier to grasp.

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