The Golden Compass - Philip Pullman

After a couple of serious reads, I felt that it was time for something a bit more fun. Even though I'm doing my best to choose the next book by random, I do know a bit about some of the books on the list even though I haven't read them. I knew The Golden Compass was a young adult novel and figured I'd be in for a more lighthearted adventure story.

The novel takes place in a sort of parallel universe to ours. Every human has their own daemon - their soul living outside their body in an animal form - that is closely attached to them and cannot stray. The story follows the wild adventures of Lyra and her daemon Pantalaimon. Lyra and her daemon set off to the Arctic, accompanied by a motley crew of characters (a gypsy-like clan, a balloon flying aeronaut and an armored bear) to rescue her friend Roger and Uncle Asriel who she was told were captured. Her friend Roger was taken by a group of people who perform experiments on children that include "cutting" away their daemon - a most horrific idea. Along the way, Lyra learns just how important she is in stopping these horrible experiments.

Before she leaves England, she is given a golden alethiometer, which as she learns to read, tells her the answer to any question she asks. This magical tool guides Lyra on her long journey to her final destination in the Arctic and her Uncle Asriel.

Initially, I had a difficult time getting in to the story and I suspect that it was because the book is meant for a much younger audience. Once I put aside my "adult" perceptions and expectations, the story really took off for me. It's full of fantasy, adventure and fun characters and takes you on a roller coaster of emotions as you follow Lyra on her journey.

While much of the language is simple and some of the plot predictable, the story is definitely not without twists and turns. The Golden Compass can really bring back some of your childhood imagination if you are willing to let it.

Rating - Very Good - 8 out of 10

Little Free Library

Since I'm only about 1/3 of the way through my next book, I thought this would be a great opportunity to share an exciting event that's occurred in my wonderful little neighborhood. We now have a brand new Little Free Library up and running!

If you've never heard of this program and love to read - you need to pay their website a visit. It's an awesome organization started a few years ago, that has gone from one man's tribute to his mother to a worldwide initiative that promotes literacy. You may have even seen some of these cute little boxes around your town. It's basic idea is "Leave a book, Take a book" - and it's all free. Here's a picture of the new one in my neighborhood - so cute!

As much as I love my Kindle, there is just something indescribable about a physical, paper book that you hold in your hands. It has a different feeling about it and transports you away from reality in a way that my Kindle just can't. That's why I love the idea of these Little Free Libraries so much. It's a great way to get people reading and to bring neighborhoods together!

It's easy to get started with your own Little Free Library so if you don't have one near you (or even if you do!) think about joining the movement and setting up your own library. You can either build your own (if you are super handy!) or you can purchase one through their website. There is a one-time fee to make your library "official" and they will send you a packet with everything you need to get started and to keep your library going.

So go either get one started or check one out that's near you and let me know what you think!

The Color of Water - James McBride

As I make my way through this list of books, I’m choosing only by title. I am not reading any synopsis or review before choosing my next book – I thought this would make it more interesting. I’ll be honest, when I downloaded “The Color of Water” onto my Kindle and read what it was about I thought I was going to be in for another long read. Boy was I wrong. I couldn’t put this book down and FLEW through it in about 4 days!

McBride does a sort of split narrative with this novel. His mother, Ruth, narrates half of this book (her chapters are in italics) and tells the mysterious and surprising story of her past. McBride narrates the other half and tells the story of his childhood and growing up with a black father and a white mother in the 1960’s.

Ruth immigrated to America as a young girl with her Polish Jewish family. Her family led a strict Jewish lifestyle as her father was a traveling Rabbi. They eventually settled in Suffolk, Virginia where her father opened a small convenience store where the entire family put in tireless hours. Ruth’s childhood was full of many struggles and she was constantly searching for her place among a people that she never fully connected with. She eventually cuts ties with her family and runs off to New York where, in 1942, marries Dennis, a black man.

These years, spent in the projects of New York, are described as the happiest years of Ruth’s life. Together, they have 8 children and start up a church, where Dennis preaches. While Ruth is pregnant with their 8th child, Dennis is diagnosed with lung cancer and dies soon after. Left with 8 children to take care of, Ruth struggles to find a way to support her family. She then meets Hunter Jordan, falls in love and marries. Together, they have 4 more children.

James, the 8th child, grows up in a chaotic family of 14 and weaves his story in with that of his mother’s. Much like his mother, he struggles to find his place in a fast-changing world who still does not accept his mixed race family. His mother was the absolute leader of their family and instilled education, values and religion on each of her children. Race was never an issue for Ruth and did her best to influence the same belief on her children. This was a difficult task during a time when the civil rights movement was in full force.

I was completely enthralled with this story from the first page. It was an incredibly interesting dynamic to see the life of a young, white Jewish girl pinned side by side with the struggles of a young, mixed race child growing up in the 1960’s. Ruth is a compelling character who despite the obstacles she was faced with, manages to raise 12 children and send each and every one of them to college during an extraordinarily, racially charged time in American history. I found myself cheering on Ruth and her family and being completely amazed at how James narrated the chaos of his childhood.

If you are in the mood, for a surprising and uplifting family story full of love, heartache, triumph and struggle – go pick up this book and get reading.

Rating – Excellent – 9 out of 10

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

Book #2 that I chose to read off the list told me of a true story that I had never heard of before. Rebecca Skloot introduces us to Henrietta Lacks, her family and her immortal cells.

Henrietta grew up in rural Virginia as a poor, black farmer during the earlier half of the 20th century. Though she never had much, she always had a smile on her face and perfectly manicured nails. At the age of 14, Henrietta found herself pregnant with her first child. A few years later she would give birth again and soon after, marry "Day", her first cousin (and father of her children). In 1941, the Lacks family moves to Maryland where Henrietta and Day would eventually have 3 more children.

About four months after the birth of her 5th child, Henrietta visited her doctor complaining of a knot in her stomach. Her doctor referred her to Johns Hopkins for further treatment. Johns Hopkins was their only choice of hospital as it was the only one in proximity to treat black people. Henrietta's diagnosis from her doctors there came back as cervical cancer. Because of complications from other illnesses (like HPV and syphillus) her cancer would prove to be aggressive and deadly.

During her treatment, small samples of her cervix were removed without her knowledge or permission. These are the cells that would eventually become the famous HeLa immortal cell line. Skloot quickly takes you through this part of the story, to Henrietta's death in 1951 and then jumps ahead in time and introduces you to Henrietta's (now grown) children. It is through them - mainly Deborah, the 4th of the 5 children - that Skloot attempts to piece together the story of Henrietta and her famous cells. It's not an easy task as at this point, the Lacks family has been treated very unkindly by people in the medical field when it came to their mother's famous cells.

I'll be honest - this story was not what I expected it to be. I was anticipating a story about Henrietta Lacks, her life, her struggles and how she lived before succumbing to cancer. To me, this part of the story was short and relatively glazed over. The novel was heavy on scientific facts like what cells are, how they work and how research is conducted using HeLa cell lines. It also focused heavily on how our medical system was structured in the 1950's and how it progressed through the decades - especially concerning human tissue, ownership and informed consent. While this was interesting, it left me feeling bored and wondering when the story would pick back up.

As I forged ahead through the novel, I felt more and more like Skloot was mainly concerned with illustrating HOW she got the story of Henrietta, rather than actually sharing that story with us. She would mention tidbits of things she found in her investigations like what Henrietta did or how she acted but never divulged that information.

By the end of the novel I was frustrated and felt a lot more connected to Deborah than I did to Henrietta. While it was terrible how the Lacks family was treated by Johns Hopkins and the doctors involved in the HeLa cell line development and commercialization, I felt a lack of compassion for them. The constant rollercoaster of changing opinions and emotions surrounding their mother's cells was exhausting and I think it's a result of how the story was delivered.

All in all, I learned a lot about HeLa cells and how they have helped advance the field of medicine today. But, I also feel like most of what I took away from the book was about Skloot and her journey to collect this story - which was disappointing.

Rating: 4 out of 10 - Alright

The Immortal Life of What!?

The second book that I chose from this list is "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks". The story intrigued me and it was available from my local library for digital checkout on my Kindle. I'm about halfway through the story and I've had an admittedly difficult time getting through it and thought I would share some of my initial thoughts here.

I thought that if I did some research on HeLa cells and how they have helped advance medicine that I would feel more attached to the story. HeLa cells are pretty incredible and have helped scientists test vaccines for diseases like Polio, AIDS and cancer. They were also the first cells to be cloned, used to test the effects of radiation and used in gene mapping efforts.

While all of those things have been great for the field of medicine - the one thing this story really brought to the forefront of my attention is how different the field of medicine (seemingly) is today versus in the 1950's. There was no informed consent and really no laws at all about who owns tissues or cells once removed from a person. It kind of makes you curious about every time you've walked into a doctor's office and what they have the ability to do, without your knowledge.

I wanted to be more surprised at the lack of involvement in terms of Henrietta's family throughout this whole process, but I haven't been. Even Henrietta herself didn't let her family know she was sick until she absolutely couldn't hide it anymore. Henrietta was a poor, black Southerner living through a time in American history where she was considered inferior. Neither her nor her family were very educated so I'm not sure that had they even been involved from the beginning, that they would have understood the implications of what the doctors were doing.

The internet is a glorious thing and simply typing in "Hela cells" into a search bar results in more hits than I could ever imagine looking through. I was curious how prevalent these cells were in the news today and I couldn't believe how many times "Hela cells" were mentioned in medical news just in this past week. I also came across this article from the Huffington Post last year about a new agreement between the NIH and the Lacks family. It made me happy to see that after so many years of neglect, that there was an attempt being made to do some sort of right by this family.

Unfortunately, poking around the internet has not made me feel any more attached to this story, nor has it increased my compassion towards the Lacks family. Hopefully, as I make it through the second half of this story my perspective will change. I'll have my full review and rating up soon!

The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins

What better way to kick off my literary journey through 100 books than with a book that everyone has been talking about lately - The Hunger Games.

Unless you've been living under a rock, you have heard of this best-selling novel. Love it or hate it - The Hunger Games has achieved super stardom in the book world. Even though the novel's target audience is young adults, it has captured the attention of everyone from tweens to major Hollywood producers.

Now - I don't want you to misunderstand my enthusiasm as we go through this post. I definitely did not jump on the Katniss bandwagon when it first hit the shelves. Honestly, I did the Twilight thing and was a bit concerned that people may start questioning my literary eye if I continued reading these trendy Tween trilogies. But, after many of my friends insisted that I read it and that I would LOVE it - OMG - I picked up the first book. And I was hooked.

This dystopian novel takes place in Panem, which is a collection of 12 fenced-in districts that all exist simply to serve the wealthy, technologically advanced, power-hungry Captial. The heroine of the story is Katniss Everdeen. She is a closely guarded yet opinionated teen who expertly wields a bow and arrow thanks to the teachings of her late father. Katniss spends her days hunting illegally outside the fence of District 12 in order to help support her distant mother and baby sister, Prim. A seemingly familiar dystopian setting, but noble nonetheless.

As an annual reminder of their control over the Districts, the Capital conducts the Hunger Games. Each District is required to send 1 boy and 1 girl (chosen by random drawing) to the games where they will fight tributes from the other Districts - to the death. While this is a fairly grim idea - it truly sends a powerful political statement to the audience. The entirety of the Games is televised throughout the Districts and everyone is required by law to watch.

Collins then transports you into the violent arena of the Hunger Games where nothing is off limits. The Gamemakers control every piece of the arena from weather, to food and crazy mutated animals. The story definitely keeps you on the edge of your seat in terms of action but some of the more truly "young adult" themes come alive during this part of the story and it lost me a bit. I found much of the romance that develops between Katniss and Peeta cliche but in all fairness, it should pass of perfectly well for the intended, younger audience. It was interesting though to read about this relatively forced, one-sided teenage love from an adult perspective and try to remember what those days were like. I swear I was never like either of the two in this story though.

I know many people found it difficult to get past the idea of children fighting to the death and it prevented them from picking up this book. While it is gruesome and violent and somewhat hard to stomach in parts, the story really hits on some tough and eye-opening political themes that those of us living in America today could eerily relate to. If you can move past the violence, you are in for a real action-packed, well paced read that will leave you scrambling to pick up the second book.

This review comes after my second reading of this story and I can say that it really still was just as good as the first time I picked it up. And I really wouldn't be surprised if I pick it up again somewhere down the line.

Rating: 9 out of 10 - Excellent

100 Books to Read Before You Die

Amazon released a list of 100 books to read before you die not too long ago and my Mom sent me the link wondering how many I had read. As an avid reader and a college graduate with a B.A. in English I was sure I had read most of them on this list. I was wrong - I was only able to check off 33 out of 100. It was then that I knew I had to rectify this situation and what better motivation than to blog while I do it!?

I will make my way through the list and share my review and opinions as I complete them. Each book will also get a rating from 1-10. You can find explanations for each rating on the home page!

Here is the full list of 100 books (I will read them in random order):

1. 1984 by George Orwell
2. A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
3. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
4. A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah
5. A Series of Unfortunate Events #1: The Bad Beginning: The Short-Lived Edition by Lemony Snicket
6. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
7. Alice Munro: Selected Stories by Alice Munro
8. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
9. All the President's men by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein
10. Angela's Ashes: A Memoir by Frank McCourt
11. Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
12. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
13. Beloved by Toni Morrison
14. Born to Run - A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall
15. Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat
16. Catch-22 by Joesph Heller
17. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
18. Charlotte's Web by E.B. White
19. Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
20. Daring Greatly: How the Courage to be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent and Lead by Brene Brown
21. Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Book 1 by Jeff Kinney
22. Dune by Frank Herbert
23. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
24. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream by Hunter S. Thompson
25. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
26. Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown
27. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
28. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared M. Diamond
29. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
30. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
31. Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
32. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
33. Jimmy Corrigan: Smartest Kid on Earth by Chris Ware
34. Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain
35. Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
36. Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
37. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
38. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
39. Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich
40. Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
41. Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
42. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
43. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
44. Moneyball by Michael Lewis
45. Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham
46. On the Road by Jack Kerouac
47. Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen
48. Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
49. Portnoy's Complaint by Phillip Roth
50. Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen
51. Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
52. Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
53. Team of Rivals by Doris Kearms Goodwin
54. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
55. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
56. The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X and Alex Haley
57. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
58. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
59. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
60. The Color of Water by James McBride
61. The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
62. The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson
63. The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank
64. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
65. The Giver by Lois Lowry
66. The Golden Compass: His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
67. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
68. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
69. The House at Pooh's Corner by A.A. Milne
70. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
71. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
72. The Liars' Club: A Memoir by Mary Karr
73. The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 1) by Rick Riordan
74. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
75. The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler
76. The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright
77. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
78. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: And Other Clinical Tales by Oliver Sacks
79. The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan
80. The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
81. The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel by Barbara Kingsolver
82. The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert A. Caro
83. The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe
84. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
85. The Secret History by Donna Tartt
86. The Shining by Stephen King
87. The Stranger by Albert Camus
88. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
89. The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
90. The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
91. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
92. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: A Novel by Haruki Murakami
93. The World According to Garp by John Irving
94. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
95. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
96. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
97. Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand
98. Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann
99. Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein
100. Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak