Book Fourteen

In The Scenic Route (yes, it's a road trip novel), Sylvia and Henry meander by car through the new, boundaryless Europe. Sylvia shares her store of memories with Henry -- of growing up in Westchester, where the neighborhood bully killed her turtle with a hammer; her hatred for her brother Joel, her mother's death, her father's reunion with a former girlfriend her mother had hated, his later accident and loss of long-term memory.

This book was laugh out loud funny in parts (Can I have your pickle? I haven't had a vegetable all week) but also sad. Sylvia's remembering of her mother's death and sorting through her belongings was a bit too close for comfort.

It will be interesting to process this with my friends at book club - provided they actually have read the novel. Some reviewers felt that Sylvia had gained insight by the end of the novel. I agree with Publisher's Weekly that "What's crushing isn't Sylvia's secret-it's how knowledge hasn't made her wiser." She seems lost (perhaps still grieving her mother's death) and the ending left me utterly frustrated.

"we were cowards, and that was the end of that."

Book Thirteen

This was an interesting book. Selected by Kate, the book was a total bomb at our last Vanaheim book club. I had not finished unfortunately. I loved the book. Kate also loved the book. But others, not so fond.

Never Let Me Go is like the Giver with a little twist of Handmaid's Tale combined with a smidge of Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld. It will be a fantastic movie someday, of this I am sure. Washington Post declares "It is almost literally a novel about humanity: what constitutes it, what it means, how it can be honored or denied." I'm bummed that book club could not delve into this book further as this is exactly the type of book that needs to be discovered, devoured and torn apart with like and unlike minds.

I "completed" this book but did feel complete. May have to read with another book club down the line. Good one, Kate.