bigBADbobby.blogspot.com: Books 46 & 47 of 2011's 64

47/64: Everything Changes by Tropper, 4/5 Stars
Entertained Me: High / Made Me Think: High

With the very first paragraph of this book I was captivated. Why? Because for the past few weeks (maybe even months) I've been waking up to sense an invisible form next to me in bed--a longing for a reality that simply isn't there. Here, I adapted the first paragraph to show you what I mean:

"I instinctively reach over for her, but it isn't her, of course, it's no one. There have been a few brief times when it was her. And yet, lately, whenever I wake up, my first, dazed instinct, before real life comes back into focus, is to assume that it's her in the bed beside me. I suppose that in my dreams, not the one or two that I can recall, but the millions that vanish into oblivion like flies when you've barely even begun to move your cupped, ready hand in their direction, in those dreams, she must be mine, over and over again. So there's always this vaguely troubling notion when I wake up like this, this sense that I've somehow been transported to an alternate universe where my life took a left instead of a right because of some seemingly insignificant yet cosmically crucial choice I made, about a girl or a kiss or a date or a job or which Starbucks I went to... something."

This book had 5 stars written all over it through the first few chapters. Its characters were slices of all the parts of my life. But then, I started to see--maybe to feel--myself creeping back into the dark (You know what I mean? I haven't shared many of those dark words with y'all yet, but they've been written). The last couple of years haven't been easy, but I'm not there anymore. The book was me. And because it's me and I'm not yet back to full steam, I can't give it 5 stars. So, I could see myself doing those things because I'd considered some pretty crazy things to get others to understand me. I had to recover from that while reading (I had a hard time putting it down. Finished it in 24 hours). Enough said. On to the end, which is probably an account to how things will work out for me someday, not literally, but in a great and immediate similar surprise as two people suddenly see eye to eye... as I wake up to find not the invisible form, but the real woman in bed next to me.

46/64: A Brave New World by Huxley, 2/5 Stars
Entertained Me: Med / Made Me Think: Med

It surprises me how the books that I enjoyed in my younger years do little for me now that I've grown older. Reading ABNW this time around felt disjointed. It failed to live up to the greatness that I remember. But, so go many things in life, right?

Book #44 = The Art of Racing in the Rain by Stein, 3.5/5 Stars

Book #43 = The Mountain Between Us by Martin, 4.5/5 Stars

Book #42 = The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Murakami, 2/5 Stars

Book #41 = The Devil in the White City by Larson, 3/5 Stars

Book #40 = The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Shaffer, 3.5/5 Stars

Book #39 = The Help by Stockett, 4/5 Stars

Book #38 = The Accidental Tourist by Tyler, 2/5 Stars

Book #37 = Room With a View by Forster, 1.5 Stars

Book #36 = The Dead Town by Koontz, 2.5/5 Stars

Book #35 = Lost Souls by Koontz, 3/5 Stars

Book #34 = Dead and Alive by Koontz, 2/5 Stars

Book #33 = City of Night by Koontz, 3/5 Stars