Miz Parker’s Quest to Read Every Book on the List "1,001 Books to Read Before You Die."
Books I Have Read Which Are Not Included on the List “1,001 Books to Read Before You Die.”
Stockett doesn’t simply put modern characters in old-fashioned clothing and call it historical fiction – the time period actually matters and is a character in the story. It shapes what the characters can do, what they cannot do, and what happens to them when they step outside the boundaries of what society considers acceptable.
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Evelyn does not have regrets. It’s against her nature to regret choices she has made, since every choice served her own self-interests. She openly admits that she would make many of the same choices again. I do not say this to say that Evelyn is incapable of reflection. She does reflect. She simply does not repent.
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Bryn Greenwood has written a story about profoundly damaged people trying to find something they desperately need: safety, connection, and the feeling of being seen. That does not make all of their choices acceptable. It does, however, make them painfully human.
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“I spread my arms out wide, gave a big twirl, then curtsied. I’d been working, lately, on being whimsical. From what I understood, this required saying things like whoopsie daisies, twirling around in prairie dresses, and throwing my head back and laughing hysterically at things that really weren’t that funny. “On behalf of the mountains and the chickens and cows and the kale and the kids,” I said grandly, “welcome to Yesteryear Ranch.””
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So I’m sitting there in a pleasant daze, thinking, ‘Yes, yes, go on…’, when he suddenly said, ‘There is just one thing I wonder: can you explain to me, what is the appeal of a man in a kilt?’
Well, had I been totally conscious, I might not have said it (then again…). Anyway, I looked at him for a moment and said, ‘Well… I suppose it’s the idea that you could be up against a wall with him in a moment.’
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Jacob demands an outrageous dowry – that all of the men of Shechem shall bear the mark of the tribe of Jacob, and be circumcised. Seeing how in love with Dinah his son is, the King agrees and the bargain is struck. The night after the mass circumcision, Dinah’s brothers sneak into the city. They are furious about the kidnapping and rape of their sister, and slaughter every man they can find while he sleeps.
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After years of a nomadic life in the southwest, the family is finally desperate enough to move back in with Rex’s parents in Welch, West Virginia. It is here that the story takes a dark(er) turn, as the children meet their abusive grandparents for the first time and begin to understand why their father left. The story follows Jeanette and her brother and sisters through their tumultuous childhood, culminating in their escape to New York City at the end of their teen years. But are they finally free of their parents?
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Sopeap Sin threatens the family, but when she glimpses Nisay’s book, she falls to her knees, greedily thumbing through it, and Sang Ly begins to suspect that Sopeap Sin can secretly read.
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Carl’s research reveals that the poem in question is actually a “culling song”, which has the magical power to kill anyone it is spoken aloud to. Half mad with grief over recognizing that he killed his family, Carl accidentally memorizes the culling song and becomes an unintentional serial killer.
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You come to understand that he has never traded love for any of the things he could have had for it – a wife, children, family, companionship, partnership. He has been offered everything, and has never taken anything if there was not love. Despite all of his faults and ridiculous shortcomings, he has a queer sort of integrity.
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Grace can heal the flesh of others, but can she heal her own? Can she soothe the darkness which threatens to eat Marly from the inside out, or will it consume Grace with it?
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Best-known as the author of The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold’s “Lucky” is her memoir of having been raped as a freshman in college, and the effect that it had on her life.
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