Happy Halloween

Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays. Costumes were always fun and in recent years I've learned how to do intricate and convincing face paint. I spent every 31st running around my neighborhood with my friends and eating as much candy as I could. This year a lot of that changed. My costume was last minute with little effort and I don't care much for the candy. Instead, I just enjoy the ambiance. My favorite memory on Halloween was twp years after I moved from Milford. I had been away from my friends and my old neighborhood for months, but I got to go trick-or-treating the same way I did every year with everyone I knew. I caught up with my old friends and we spent all night together. It was nice to catch up with everyone and I remember having SO MUCH CANDY. Afterward, we went to my old, abandoned house. It was condemned when we left, but we attempted to get in and the door opened. We walked around our old home. I remember all the murals we painted around the house and how familiar everything still felt. I had put my handprint on the wall with a date when the rooms first got painted and I was able to admire them. I don't have any photos from that night and I don't think I could ever repeat it and go back. It was a moment that I keep close to my heart. That place was my child home and there are so many memories and keepsakes I left behind there. Halloween is my favorite holiday and that moment made it so much more special.

Perks of Being a Wallflower

After finishing The Last Time We Say Goodbye, I have decided to switch to a shorter, easier read. I've heard about Perks of Being a Wallflower for a long time and it's been sitting on my bookshelf waiting patiently for its turn. I have finally gotten around to it. The first thing I noticed when I opened the book was the formatting. Each section is written as a letter and it is not clear who it's addressed to. It reads "dear friend", but it's often mentioned that he's sending these letters out and hoping someone will read them. It's unclear if there's another character he's writing to or if it meant for the reader. I personally imagine an older man finding these letters in his mailbox and reading them, though I have nothing to support this. I also took note of how naive the main character, Charlie, is. He often looks at very serious situations and shrugs then off or doesn't understand that weight they carry. In one case he witness his sisters boyfriend abuse her and does nothing but keep it a secret. In another he witness a girl get raped and doesn't realize what it was until he says it out loud months after the fact to his friends. Charlie is described as thinking a lot and veiny stuck in his head but he isn't thinking about what's going on around him. Instead he has his own reality. I am not very far into this book, but it's an interesting read and a new perspective. I'm excited to continue this book. 

Saying Goodbye to This Book

One thing I find most troubling about my adventures with reading is putting down the books that I don't like. I feel like (most) books deserve the chance to get better. In some cases, this works brilliantly, like my struggles with Gone Girl and the exciting, hooking climax I can't regret reading. In other cases, like Origin by Jessica Khoury, it was a waste of my time struggling through the story. I've put down two books in my life, Diary of Anne Frank and a book I've forgotten the title to because it was so bad. Unfortunately, I believe I'm going to be adding another title to this tiny list. The Last Time We Say Goodbye has turned out to be the most mind-numbing book I've attempted to trudge through. I can tell it's going to a climax, but the build is so slow. I'm constantly learning meaningless information that won't help me better understand the character or the story. Maybe I'm missing something, but from what I can tell there's no real focus. This book is not organized at all. It's random and follows no real plot. I often find myself wondering why I need the information I'm being force fed. On top of all of this, the main character is not interesting. The only characteristic she has is having lost her brother. She is defined by that. There is nothing more to Lexie Riggs than the fact that her brother committed suicide and she has to deal with it now. I am incredibly frustrated by this. This story could be executed so well, but instead, there is no story.

The Last Time We Say Goodbye

My favorite genre to read is young adult fiction. Most of these books are thick with beautiful hardcovers and simple, yet interesting writing styles. You can imagine my excitement when I found a book with an original cover and the promises of tears, smiles, and laughs. The main character even shares my name! This had no faults, it was everything I could dream of. So why am I 150 pages in and bored out of my mind? The main character, Lex, is faced with the trouble of losing her brother to suicide. This is heartbreaking and causes significant mental damage, but none of that is shown through Lex's thoughts or actions. She simply acts like a normal teenager. A lot of emphasis is put on her relationship with her friends and how quickly it has deteriorated, but we never get a taste of the relationship before her brother's death. She just seems like an introverted kid. The rest of the character don't really play a role Lex's life. It's just the internal ramblings of a hormonal teenager. This reminds me of Speak by Laura Halse Anderson. The character has had a tragic event occur and the story focuses on how they react and how it's affected their life, but there is no before. There is nothing to compare it too. As far as the reader knows the character has always been depressed and alone. These stories are from the young girl;s point of view and she complains about the things going wrong; how she has no friends, her family isn't right, she's had this huge thing happen but isn't dealing with. They never end up doing anything about it though. In Speak , another character must save Melinda and even then it doesn't show the change from depressed to happy. I don't see this book taking a much different path. I guess I'd rather watch the shift happen than witness a girl wallow by herself. I'd rather see the event that caused it and feel the same pain as the character feels. I'm hoping all of this comes together later on, but for now, I'm mostly bored. Maybe I'll stop judging books by their cover.

Into the Wild

I've been approaching the end of Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. It's only a 200 -page book, but I've been excited to get to the end. Not for the normal reasons, unfortunately, but because it's not a very interesting book. I am not a non-fiction person and that may be why I don't connect with this book as much as I usually do with the books I spend time on. The book is written like an extended article. The author clearly states he is a journalist writing about the true to life events that took place to Chris McCandless. His life is clearly abnormal. He's a genius with rich parents, a happy family, and a thriving social life. What then encouraged him to donate his $25,000 college fund to charity, dump his car and begin living a vagabond lifestyle? That is the question Krakauer is trying to answer in this book. He interviews the people Chris met along his journey and connects his own adventures in life to those that Chris took. This book made me think about how little matters, but it also pointed out why so many things do. Chris detested the way Americans lived. He believed they were ungrateful and that all the luxuries in life were unnecessary. I started thinking about what living without all the little things would be like and whether that would be a better life. In the end, I realized that Chris lived a fairly unhappy life. He claimed that he was happier when he had nothing, but throughout his journal and from what he told others, he didn't enjoy living as much as he claims. Some even speculate he committed suicide in Alaska, rather than starving by mistake. The most prominent part of this book is the question: How much should material items matter to us? I found my answer in this book, but I definitely didn't enjoy the journey to discover it.