The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer 

My rating: 4/5 stars

“And didn’t it always go like that — body parts not quite lining up the way you wanted them to, all of it a little bit off, as if the world itself were an animated sequence of longing and envy and self-hatred and grandiosity and failure and success, a strange and endless cartoon loop that you couldn’t stop watching, because, despite all you knew by now, it was still so interesting.”

Ironically, “The Interestings’’ (as they call themselves) are not all that interesting. What was interesting was Wolitzer’s ability to tell a story about 6 group of friends who meet in adolescence and how the dynamics of this friendship changes over the years.

Nothing particularly exciting happens in this book. Wolitzer isn’t telling the story of their lives to lead up to some important event or catastrophe. It’s simply just a reminder that everyone walks different paths in life. Some people grow up to accomplish great things and some don’t. Some people don’t truly find themselves until they’re old and grey. Some people can never be content with what they have and are always longing to be someone else, or somewhere else. Some people choose practicality over dreams.

Mostly, people are just people. Making choices. Getting by. Living life, you know?

 

Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar by Cheryl Strayed

My rating: 4/5 stars 

I tend to be skeptical about books that claim to have the answers to life. Because each person’s experience is different and it’s kind of ridiculous to think that any one person would have all the answers to love and life and what not. But that’s the beautiful thing about this book – Sugar doesn’t have all the answers and she doesn’t pretend to.

She makes her replies to every letter personal, and never explicitly tells her readers what to do but rather makes them realize what they already know. She is endearing, honest and ends each letter in a way that leaves you short of breath.

I said each person’s experience is different. And that may be true but in many ways, we share more similarities than differences. There is a letter in this book for everyone, for whatever situation you have experienced, are currently experiencing, or fear you might experience in the future.

I think for the most part, reading all these letters simply reminded me that we truly are never really alone in this world; and that in itself is a comforting thing to know.

 

Until Friday Night by Abbi Glines

My rating: 2/5 stars

After reading two somewhat serious books, I was looking for a light and maybe even predictable read about young love; which led to me picking up “Until Friday Night.”

2 years ago Maggie Carlton witnessed her father murder her mother. Traumatized by the events of that night she has avoided dealing with it by never talking about it. Or talking about anything.

When she moves to Lawton to live with her Aunt & Uncle, she meets West Ashby on the first day of school. West is also dealing with his own problems. His dad is terminally ill, he can’t tell anyone about it and he’s trying to be strong for his mom.

West and Maggie instantly form a “connection.” West finds himself being able to talk to Maggie about anything. & even though Maggie hasn’t said a word since witnessing her mother get killed, she is somehow compelled to talk to West (and only West) because she can see his pain and wants to be there for him.

I didn’t enjoy this one much. I wish I could chalk it up to it being “too immature” for me. But the YA genre is sone of my favourite genres to date; and has produced some of the best stories I’ve ever read and characters I’ve ever met. This particular book just isn’t one of them. The story itself, to me, lacked depth and the male characters had some extremely misogynistic and entitled views.