My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult

This time: My Sister's Keeper
Do you ever have that book that it is hard to put down? That you read because you need to know what happens? Yes, I got through this book in 2 days, and even so, the last hour, I couldn't put it down. Even though I told myself I would be done at 11 and start up tomorrow, I read for 45 minutes past then because I HAD to finish it, HAD to know what happens.
Being a mother, I sympathize with Sara, the mother that essentially genetically engineered a child to be a donor for her daughter that has leukemia. That you would do whatever it takes to save your child. Unfortunately, as she says, she was being a mother to Kate that she forgot to be a mother to her other two children. And that is where I sympathize with Anna, the girl in the book, raised to be the donor. Never asked how she felt about it and always just expected to do it. Wow! And I will not give away the ending, but wow!
Would I read it again? Yes, yes, yes. I will look into more of her novels after I work through this list.
23/118

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

This time: The Lottery and Other Stories.
It took me a really long time to finish this book. I loved The Lottery growing up, so I thought I would like her other works. Not so much. She just writes about average people in average situations, where nothing changes in the end. Now, there were a few, about people dealing with racism, etc, that were interesting. However, I don't feel like my life was affected at all by this book, by the average characters, and the average events in the stories. Not a big deal, just not my thing.
Would I read it again: No...just not my style
22/118

Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by George Maguire

This time around: Wicked.
Okay, this one took me a while to get past the first 50 pages. I just needed more progression, but the book needs to be returned to the library tomorrow, so I plowed through it this week. Now that I'm done, I really enjoyed the novel. What an interesting subject! The life of the Wicked Witch of the West, who lead a challenging life of always attempting to get affection from her father, the attempt of control in college, getting involved in the revolution against the Wizard of Oz, the discussions of Animals vs animals, and that the murder of the WWotW was really an accident. That Dorothy and the WWotW were really more similar at that one moment of time than the WWotW has been with anyone else in her life. Very interesting and a nice take against the version of the movie we all grew up with. (Speaking of which, I haven't read that novel either.)
Would I read it again? Yes...and I'm really interested in his other novels following the "evil" ones from other stories too.
21/118

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Just finished Little Women. First time reading this one. It was very enjoyable. I cried, I cheered. I loved the transitions of these girls into wonderful women. What a joy their mother must feel! And poor Laurie--loving someone who can't love him back the same way. Although, I liked how Amy and Laurie grew to love each other. So much better than the 1994 movie...the movie made it seem like he just switched to Amy since he couldn't have Jo. But really, there was a transition in the two, growing together.
Only issue--this edition needed an editor. So many mistakes, misspellings, capitalization errors galore. Only downfall. I really hope it was just the book I was reading, but I was shocked how many simple mistakes there were.
Would I read it again? Absolutely! Although I may venture onto Alcott's other works with the March girls before I reread this one.

20/118

Updated List as of 09/03/09:

A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
The Lottery: And Other Stories by Shirley Jackson
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
Song of the Simple Truth: The Complete Poems of Julia De Burgos by Julia De Burgos
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
The Picture Of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Night by Elie Wiesel
The Code of the Woosters by P. G. Wodehouse
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
Complete Tales & Poems by Edgar Allan Poe
Beloved by Toni Morrison
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
A Separate Peace by John Knowles
Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
The Story of My Life by Helen Keller
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
Time and Again by Jack Finney
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Sybil by Flora Schreiber
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
Cousin Bette by Honore De Balzac
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
1984 by George Orwell
The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
The Sound and The Fury by William Faulkner
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Emma by Jane Austen
On The Road by Jack Kerouac
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
Small Island by Andrea Levy
My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult
A Quiet Storm by Rachel Howzell Hall
My Life in Orange by Tim Guest
Truth & Beauty by Ann Patchett
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby
How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer
The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson
Nervous System by Jan Lars Jensen
The Meaning of Consuelo by Judith Ortiz Cofer
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
How the Light Gets In by M. J. Hyland
Oracle Night by Paul Auster
Quattrocento by James McKean
The Opposite of Fate by Amy Tan
Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris
Sacred Time by Ursula Hegi
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem
Old School by Tobias Wolff
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
The Bielski Brothers by Peter Duff
Brick Lane by Monica Ali
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
The Song of Names by Norman Lebrecht
Property by Valerie Martin
Rescuing Patty Hearst by Virginia Holman
The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
The Kitchen Boy by Robert Alexander
Just a Couple of Days by Tony Vigorito
Bee Season by Myla Goldberg
Fat Land : How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World by Greg Critser
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire
Unless by Carol Shields
Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy
When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka
Songbook by Nick Hornby
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Extravagance by Gary Krist
Empire Falls by Richard Russo
The Song Reader by Lisa Tucker
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn
Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand
The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

Next up: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I actually read this one before...I just didn't realize it before when I was reading the description.
Review:
Another enjoyable book! There is something about reading books about those that are poor. I enjoyed seeing the evolution of this girl...poor and hungry up to a young woman embarking on a journey to college. I liked her thoughts, her words.
Would I read it again? Well, I already have...so probably.
19/118

And now I'm all caught up with the past two weeks.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

The next book I read was The Kite Runner. Have heard so much about the book, and even watched the movie. I remember getting the book from the library once, but never read it.
Review:
Wonderful book! I enjoyed the interaction between the characters, the rich vs the servants, friends vs help and the conflicts seen. I enjoyed learning more of the Afgan culture, how it was and how it has changed to those that experienced it.
Would I read again? Absolutely!
18/118

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

I decided to start with The Jungle. I was in possession of this book because it was assigned to me in the 11th grade (gasp! Over 10 years ago). I had a hard time getting interested in the book so I read enough for the assignments.
Review:
Overall, thank god for the Food and Drug Act! Wow, it is amazing what used to happen at slaughterhouses! Other than that, the book was depressing, but gritty and real. I felt really bad for the main character--he went through so much for the "American Dream" and the harsh reality knocked him out. It was a good read...could have dealt without the extreme push for Socialism at the end. I just wasn't expecting a discussion on politics. The book moved along well until the last 75-100 pages, which just happened to move very slow for me.
Would I read again? Maybe...
17/118