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*RECOMMENDED BY RACHEL UTZ AND HOT HANNAH CAISON
Better never means better for everyone...It always means worse, for some.
In a not-too-distant dystopian future, the Republic of Gilead has overturned the government, creating a theocracy in which women are relegated to subservient roles. Women who are not wedded to the governmental elites face intensive reconditioning, during which they are taught the value of shame. Then they are sent to serve the families of politicians, where they are humiliatingly forced to bear the children of their masters.
Offred is one of these women. She remembers the days before the religious uprising, when women had freedom of expression, when she was happily married with a young daughter. Now she has no idea where her husband and daughter are or even whether they are still alive. Cautiously, she begins to forge a friendship with the Commander of her household, caught between his desire for intelligent companionship and her own safety, which demands that she appear brainless.
Atwood's careful distribution of information keeps the reader guessing even beyond the end of the novel. The Handmaid's Tale will stay with you, forcing you to contemplate the world around you in order to prevent the society depicted from spilling into our reality.
Don't let the bastards grind you down.
Better never means better for everyone...It always means worse, for some.
In a not-too-distant dystopian future, the Republic of Gilead has overturned the government, creating a theocracy in which women are relegated to subservient roles. Women who are not wedded to the governmental elites face intensive reconditioning, during which they are taught the value of shame. Then they are sent to serve the families of politicians, where they are humiliatingly forced to bear the children of their masters.
Offred is one of these women. She remembers the days before the religious uprising, when women had freedom of expression, when she was happily married with a young daughter. Now she has no idea where her husband and daughter are or even whether they are still alive. Cautiously, she begins to forge a friendship with the Commander of her household, caught between his desire for intelligent companionship and her own safety, which demands that she appear brainless.
Atwood's careful distribution of information keeps the reader guessing even beyond the end of the novel. The Handmaid's Tale will stay with you, forcing you to contemplate the world around you in order to prevent the society depicted from spilling into our reality.
Don't let the bastards grind you down.
Professor St. Peter grieves over the tragic death of his favorite student and has also begun to feel the effects of aging. In a display of social ascendency, St. Peter and his wife move into a new, larger house. The professor resents this change, as well as his daughter's marriage to the generous yet aloof Louis, and begins to spend his free time in the study of the abandoned house, thinking about years past and coming to terms with his new lifestyle.
Cather captures the personalities of her minor characters with deft precision, but the star of the novel is the titular professor, whose pensive recollections make up the majority of the novel. In fact, a diversion to another character's perspective in the middle of the novel was unwelcome and distracting by comparison. Readers looking for a fast-paced thriller will not be satisfied by The Professor's House, but I found its astute characterizations and mid-twentieth century setting very soothing.
"My dear," he sighed when the lights were turned on and they both looked older, "it's been a mistake, our having a family and writing histories and getting middle-aged. We should have been picturesquely shipwrecked together when we were young."
Cather captures the personalities of her minor characters with deft precision, but the star of the novel is the titular professor, whose pensive recollections make up the majority of the novel. In fact, a diversion to another character's perspective in the middle of the novel was unwelcome and distracting by comparison. Readers looking for a fast-paced thriller will not be satisfied by The Professor's House, but I found its astute characterizations and mid-twentieth century setting very soothing.
"My dear," he sighed when the lights were turned on and they both looked older, "it's been a mistake, our having a family and writing histories and getting middle-aged. We should have been picturesquely shipwrecked together when we were young."
To really touch something, she is learning—the bark of a sycamore tree in the gardens; a pinned stag beetle in the Department of Etymology; the exquisitely polished interior of a scallop shell in Dr. Geffard’s workshop—is to love it.
Years before the start of World War II, a young French girl named Marie-Laure goes blind. With the encouragement and unfailing love of her father, Marie-Laure fights her disability with raw curiosity, and she dedicates herself to learning, exploring the biology of the world around her and reading the works of Jules Verne in Braille. When the war reaches Paris, Marie-Laure and her father flee to the coastal town of Saint-Malo, where they take refuge with Marie-Laure’s brilliant, withdrawn uncle. Unbeknownst to Marie-Laure, the pair are also accompanied by a mysterious, potentially cursed gemstone that Marie’s father is trying to keep out of Nazi hands.
Is it right to do something only because everyone else is doing it?
In Germany, Werner and his younger sister Jutta are similarly curious. In their orphanage, Werner mends radios, becoming technologically talented in a way that soon makes him valuable to the Nazi military. When he is recruited, Werner goes willingly, grateful that he will not have to spend his life in his town’s coal mine. Jutta miserably watches her brother go, knowing that the Nazi party will not save him but will merely expose him to a different set of cruelties.
Sometimes the eye of a hurricane is the safest place to be.
The paired stories of Marie-Laure and Werner set up a narrative in which the reader feels the pain of the war on both sides; no one is exempt from fear, trauma, or loss. Doerr’s prose swept me off my feet, provoking intensely layered emotions and fascination about the intricacies of the characters’ lives. This novel is quite an undertaking; complex characters and settings require thoughtfulness and dedication on the part of the reader. There were definitely moments in which I wished the pace would pick up, but in retrospect I am thankful to Doerr for pressing me to absorb even the less-momentous events of the story. Doerr writes beautifully, and I felt that he deftly encapsulated the historical time period.
Science, my lad, is made up of mistakes, but they are mistakes which it is useful to make, because they lead little by little to the truth.
Years before the start of World War II, a young French girl named Marie-Laure goes blind. With the encouragement and unfailing love of her father, Marie-Laure fights her disability with raw curiosity, and she dedicates herself to learning, exploring the biology of the world around her and reading the works of Jules Verne in Braille. When the war reaches Paris, Marie-Laure and her father flee to the coastal town of Saint-Malo, where they take refuge with Marie-Laure’s brilliant, withdrawn uncle. Unbeknownst to Marie-Laure, the pair are also accompanied by a mysterious, potentially cursed gemstone that Marie’s father is trying to keep out of Nazi hands.
Is it right to do something only because everyone else is doing it?
In Germany, Werner and his younger sister Jutta are similarly curious. In their orphanage, Werner mends radios, becoming technologically talented in a way that soon makes him valuable to the Nazi military. When he is recruited, Werner goes willingly, grateful that he will not have to spend his life in his town’s coal mine. Jutta miserably watches her brother go, knowing that the Nazi party will not save him but will merely expose him to a different set of cruelties.
Sometimes the eye of a hurricane is the safest place to be.
The paired stories of Marie-Laure and Werner set up a narrative in which the reader feels the pain of the war on both sides; no one is exempt from fear, trauma, or loss. Doerr’s prose swept me off my feet, provoking intensely layered emotions and fascination about the intricacies of the characters’ lives. This novel is quite an undertaking; complex characters and settings require thoughtfulness and dedication on the part of the reader. There were definitely moments in which I wished the pace would pick up, but in retrospect I am thankful to Doerr for pressing me to absorb even the less-momentous events of the story. Doerr writes beautifully, and I felt that he deftly encapsulated the historical time period.
Science, my lad, is made up of mistakes, but they are mistakes which it is useful to make, because they lead little by little to the truth.
my poor baby Salinger just got too tangled up in his own head in this one