The Giver

I read The Giver by Lois Lowry for book club last week.  My first thought was - how is it possible that I wasn't required to read this in school?  Almost everyone in the world seems to have read this in school.  Where were my teachers on this one? 

My second thought - I can't believe this is a children's/young adult book.  I'm not trying to sound extremely cliche here but this was deep, profound, touching.....insert whatever other cliche book review word you'd like to here....

I'd recommend this one to anyone and everyone.  It's so much more than a children's book.  It only takes a couple hours to read so there are no excuses for not reading it if you haven't yet.

Book Reviewer Cliches

This made me laugh out loud....I was looking for book club book selections today and came across this article in Examiner:

The top 20 most annoying book reviewer cliches and how to use them all in one meaningless review

I think the only thing that could have made this list more complete is "A coming of age story"

"1. Gripping
2. Poignant: if anything at all sad happens in the book, it will be described as poignant
3. Compelling
4. Nuanced: in reviewerspeak, this means, "The writing in the book is really great. I just can't come up with the specific words to explain why."
5. Lyrical: see definition of nuanced, above.
6. Tour de force
7. Readable
8. Haunting
9. Deceptively simple: as in, "deceptively simple prose"
10. Rollicking: a favorite for reviewers when writing about comedy/adventure books
11. Fully realized
12. At once: as in, "Michael Connelly's The Brass Verdict is at once a compelling mystery and a gripping thriller." See, I just used three of the most annoying clichés without any visible effort. Piece of cake.
13. Timely
14. " X meets X meets X": as in, "Stephen King meets Charles Dickens meets Agatha Christie in this haunting yet rollicking mystery."
15. Page-turner
16. Sweeping: almost exclusively reserved for books with more than 300 pages
17. That said: as in, "Stephenie Meyer couldn't identify quality writing with a compass and a trained guide; that said, Twilight is a harmless read."
18. Riveting
19. Unflinching: used to describe books that have any number of unpleasant occurences -- rape, war, infidelity, death of a child, etc.
20. Powerful"

The Hour I First Believed

"The Hour I First Believed" by Wally Lamb was quite the book.  It has been a while since I have read something I enjoyed this much.  It was riveting. (that's my word for when I want to sound like a publication reviewing a book.)

I haven't read any of Lamb's other books ("She's Come Undone" and "I Know This Much Is True" were both Oprah books and on my 'to-read' shelf on GoodReads) so that may be part of why I liked this so much.  I often find that when reading works by the same author, I like the first I read better than any others.  There are exceptions (Kurt Vonnegut) but generally speaking, this is how it goes for me.

Starting in Littleton, Colorado in April 1999 just before the Columbine shootings, it followed a couple who worked in the school through their life and the changes that took place after facing an event that turned the world as they knew it upside down.

I expected a little bit more about Columbine but was pleasantly surprised when it wasn't focused so much about the actual event than it's effects moving forward.  There were a number of stories going on throughout the book and each of them felt like they could have stood alone but worked well together.  (It reminded me of when we went to see 'Seabiscuit' in the theatre and my sister said, "that was like seeing 5 movies for the price of one.")