Mining the Depths
I'll read almost anything and love what captures my imagination. Best of all is responding to books in the larger cultural sense, loving or loathsome. Literature should have a place in the wider world.
And I'm another GoodReads refugee.
The Girl Who Fell from the Sky
This isn't helping my perception of award-winning books. Soon, I may not try at all.Although, I primarily chose this book because the library rarely has e-books I want to read available and this novel does have a great title. The Girl Who Fell from the Sky is about a girl named Rachel who is biracial and has an extraordinarily tragic background. According to the description, this allows the author deal with "society's ideas of race, class, and beauty." For me, though, it fell short. Rachel discusses these issues a great deal in her internal dialogue, as do the other POV characters on occasion. But none of the characters felt real to me, or compelling. They were just the vehicles through which the narrative could comment on social issues. Right from the beginning though, I wasn't going along with the story. Young Rachel and Young Brick, who are both children, I think, during the beginning of the story (another thing, I had so much trouble following the timeline) have very simplistic narrative voices, as does Nella, Rachel's mother. They sound like someone who has never actually met a child imagines they speak. Kindergarten level maybe. And yet—Rachel, especially—they have an ability to read other people bordering on omniscience.These are all primarily issues of technique. I feel guilty for not liking this book. How can you not feel for Rachel and all she's dealt with during her short life? But while I feel for the situation, I wish she'd felt less constructed, and more like a person.
Currently reading
The Well of Ascension
Progress:
325/781 pages
Steelheart
Progress:
26 %
Fearsome Journeys: The New Solaris Book of Fantasy
Progress:
57/395 pages
Dracula
The Guermantes Way
The Art of the Personal Essay: An Anthology from the Classical Era to the Present
Mad Ship
Pitch Like A Girl: How A Woman Can Be Herself And Still Succeed
A History of Pi
English Creek
