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July 5, 2009

García's Heart

I just finished a book, and, remarkably, it's only the third one I've read this summer. I feel like such an underachiever. Then again, it's more reading than most high schoolers have probably done in the last two weeks, so I suppose that I'm semioverachieving again.
García's Heart, by Liam Durcan, was pretty good. It was absorbing, and the voice, which walked the line between pretentious and entertaining, leant more towards entertaining. Since the last book I read (The Dark is Rising, by Susan Cooper) was a children's book (albeit an enjoyable one), it was refreshing to see a sentence like "[s]tanding among a group of businessmen in the lobby of the Hotel Metropole and watching them disperse into the Den Haag drizzle, he had already begun to feel conspicuous, almost wishing he could pick up a briefcase and join their ranks for a day of bloodless regulatory triumph" on the first page. However the ending was unsatisfying to an great enough extent that I almost didn't read the last chapter, and when the novel abruptly shifted from dwelling in the past to actual events in the present, the protagonist's realizations felt forced. However, the book did, overall, provide an interesting view into morality and history.

2 comments:

ec said...

well, so far I have read about 12 books, BUT before you think that I have done nothing but read this summer I have to admit that 6 of those 12 are the latest American Girl Doll books (about 20 pgs each) which I insisted that my parents buy for me because the newest doll's name is Rebecca and she is Jewish so I got very excited. wow, major run on there. I actually have not had any contact with American girl stuff in about 7 years (although my mom bought me the American Girl puberty book when I went through that unfortunate age...) but when I heard that a jewish America girl was coming out, I MADE my dad buy me all 6 books ($45 total!!!) . The girl working at Barnes and Noble (about our age) gave me strange looks for buying them but I didn't care, this was the biggest excitement I got in a week. Yay me, aren't I cool?

Tea said...

I have that book, but I colored in all of the illustrations using gel pens. And I'd totally read those when you finish them, if you're willing to share.