The Fault in Our Stars

I finally read The Fault in Our Stars by John Green! It was so amazing. The Fault in Our Stars is about a girl named Hazel, who is dying of cancer. She meets a boy named Augustus, who survived cancer but lost his leg. At first, it reads a little like a cliche romance novel. But then the story unfolds into this deep, gorgeous story about life, love, and death. John Green's writing is absolutely breathtaking. To prove my point, here is my favorite sentence in the whole book:
"The only solution was to try to unmake the world, to make it black and silent and uninhabited again, to return to the moment before the Big Bang, in the beginning when there was the Word, and to live in that vacuous uncreated space alone with the Word."
I. Am. Obsessed. I love the science references mixed in with the biblical allusion. I have yet to read Green's other books but I'm absolutely going to.

The Scarlet Letter

Okay, so I started reading the Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne yesterday. I haven't gotten very far because the language can be challenging and I'm really busy, but it's interesting so far. I read this part yesterday about Hester coming out of the prison, holding her baby in her arms and wearing the letter A on her chest. For a moment, she considers trying to cover the A with the child she is holding. But then it occurs to her that, "one token of her shame would but poorly serve to hide another" (Hawthorne, 37). I thought that was really cool. Then, Hawthorne contrasts Hester, who he describes as having "the taint of deepest sin" to the Virgin Mary, who he describes as "that sacred image of sinless motherhood." I found that to be very thought provoking.

Thoughts on Teen Romance Novels

I am such a girl. I love romantic comedies and the most important thing to me when I watch television and movies is when the girl and guy will finally realize that they love each other. I'm a total romantic. That said, I'm not really a fan of teen romance novels. They can be enjoyable and heartwarming, but they aren't fulfilling after a while. In my opinion, once you've read one teen romance novel, you've read them all. They all seem to have the exact same plot line with the exact same message- a girl is not complete until a guy comes along and makes her life good. Call me a feminist, but I think books should be more than that. To me, books are inspiration. Books are how we find meaning in our lives. And I want my life to mean more than what a significant other can bring to it.

The Poisonwood Bible

I read The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver for my English class last semester. Though it was a little slow at first, I found that it was really enjoyable and interesting. The Poisonwood Bible is centered around the Price family, who (under the thumb of their domineering and proud father, Nathan) move to the Congo to do missionary work. The story is told from the point of view of the four daughters (Leah, Adah, Ruth May, and Rachel) and their mother. My favorite character is Adah. Adah thinks about everything and rarely speaks. One of my favorite parts of the book is when Adah tells a story about being in Sunday School as a child and asking the teacher why people who have never heard of God won't be saved. It seems to little Adah that that isn't fair at all. Instead of being helpful, however, her teacher makes her kneel in the corner on uncooked rice as punishment. Once Sunday School is over, Adah says, "When I finally got up with sharp grains imbedded in my knees, I found, to my surprise, that I no longer believed in God" (Kingsolver, 171). Each sister in the story is just as interesting as Adah, though. Rachel is the oldest and is a fairly stereotypical teenage girl. She's interested in boys and clothes. Leah is Adah's twin, who feels that Adah is a burden to her and who hangs on to every word out of her father's mouth. Ruth May is the youngest. Kingsolver brilliantly managed to turn Ruth May's simple observations into huge insights for the reader. I highly recommend this book, especially if you like books similar to East of Eden by John Steinbeck.

W;t and John Donne

Recently, I read W;t by Margaret Edson. W;t is a play about a professor of John Donne's poetry who learns she has terminal ovarian cancer. In the play, the professor (named Vivian) is forced to confront her humanity and evaluate the value of intellectual pursuits. I loved it. It was absolutely beautiful and is now my favorite play. I absolutely recommend reading it, but only after you've read at least a few poems by John Donne. Donne was a metaphysical poet who lived in the late 1500s and early 1600s. He had two main stages of poetry writing. The first was very sexual in nature, while the second was about his struggles with death, salvation, and humanity. Usually the poems in the first category are referred to as being written by "Jack" Donne, while the others are by "Dr. John" Donne. Some of my favorite poems of his are "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning," the "Holy Sonnets," "The Sun Rising," and "Go And Catch a Falling Star." The most important ones for you to read before tackling W;t are the "Holy Sonnets."

Quiet Contemplation

I am a person that hates being alone. It creeps me out and drives me crazy. This rule does not apply, however, to the early hours of the morning I sometimes spend finishing a good book. Not only am I completely unaware of my aloneness while reading, I enjoy the calm, quiet, and stillness of the early morning after finishing the book. This solitude seems to me the perfect closing to any emotional book. I am not alone because the characters are still swirling in my my head. My feelings can stir and settle while my mind goes over the story again and again, finding connections I missed and attempting to fully grasp the story. These early hours are a magical time of processing and emotional closure, during which I can fully appreciate the story while letting the story and characters go.

marginalmaddy's Reading List

I have compiled a few books that I want to read soon:

• The Fault in Our Stars- John Green
• I've wanted to read this book for a really long time- maybe this summer I finally will.
• A Thousand Splendid Suns
• I am actually halfway through this one but I have yet to find time to finish it.
• The End of War- John Horgan
• The Moral Underground: How Ordinary Americans Subvert and Unfair Economy- Lisa Dodson
• Once the American Dream: Inner-Ring Suburbs of the Metropolitan United States- Bernadette Hanlon
• The Myth of Choice- Kent Greenfield
• Reminds me of Blink a little bit
• The Invisible Line: A Secret History of Race in America- Daniel J. Shafstein
• The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason- Sam Harris
• From what I gleaned from the cover of this book, it is about how fear is affecting our choices- sounds very interesting.
• What is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense- Sherif Girgis, Ryan T. Anderson, and Robert P George
• Note: I support gay marriage & am interested in reading their argument.
• Half the Sky: Turning Opression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide- Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn
• Oddly Normal: One Family's Struggle to Help Their Teenage Son Come to Terms with His Sexuality: A Memoir
• The Link: Uncovering our Earliest Ancestor- Colin Tudge
• The Social Animal- David Brooks
• Acting White? Rethinking Race in "Post-Racial" America
• The Nature of Prejudice- Gordon W. Allport
• Hamlet
• HOW have I not read this yet???