Bee Season
This is one of two books I will be profiling this week purchased at my local St. Vincent de Paul thrift store. The best way to buy books!
This was an entertaining story about a messed up family (aren't we all). It dealt with the differences between how a person is seen from the outside and how they are on the inside. It's main theme was about finding your place - identifying your role - in the universe. It was entertaining and made me think. But it was also a little pedestrian. And it was turned into a movie starring Richard Gere which I am totally going to rent.
The Stone Diaries - Carol Sheilds
This books won the pulitizer and was shortlisted for the Booker so it definetely has the pedigree. Overall it was very good. I enjoyed reading it. It was really well-written. But it just didn't do it for me. It didn't grab me. I didn't make me want to tell everyone I know about how great it was. I think part of the reason may be because it covers the entire life of a woman and the older she got the less I felt I connected with character and the less I cared about what I was reading. This could easily be because I am still so young that I could not appreciate the book in its entertity. That being said - I totally get why someone would fall in love with it.
As an aside...
I absolutely loved the Time Travellers Wife. I thought it was great. Really good story telling. And soon to be in a theatre near you starring Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana.
And without reading it I could tell you that I would not like Eat, Pray, Love. And after talking with a friend who read it - whose review was extremely similar to that over at "counting the things I know" my initial pre-judgment was confirmed.
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6 comments:
i had no idea they were making a movie. i can see those two working in the roles...i'll have to watch for it.
a movie, really? how did you people love it?! i am seriously in the minority here, aren't i?
and i feel the same way about The Stone Carvers (is that the right name, i do not remember). have you seen the Bee Season movie? it was decent, but i loved Akeelah and the Bee. similar idea, but much better as a movie.
seriously, give Eat, Pray, Love a miss. i am glad there are others who agree out there!
and don't you love second hand book shops? (although i must admit i also really love brand new-smelling books!)
hey...I hated the English Patient...and couldn't for the life of me get through Fall on your Knees. So you aren't the only one who doesn't like "beloved" books.
(i think for me, the time traveller's wife was also a right place right time read for me...pure fantasy when i really didn't want to think about the fact that i had no job and was living in a city where i didn't really know anyone. i got lost in the story and just ended up loving it)
I too loved The Time Traveller's Wife - it's good read!
As for Eat Pray Love... a general rule of mine is that if every other person who walks in the door of Indigo and asks me for a book that they saw on Oprah I am usually quite turned off...
Stone Carvers... Stone Diaries... all the same really.
I think that the Bee Season movie is but a poor shadow of the depth of storytelling reached in the book. And I was boycotting the Akeelah and the Bee movie for a while because of the Starbucks advertising campagin - but perhaps I will revisit that decision.
I lost my copy of the English Patient when I was 40pages in but I am in no rush to replace it - though I am in the majority who loved Fall on Your Knees.
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