Eleanor & Park

by Rainbow Rowell

This book was adorable. I had heard of it but didn't have any solid plans to read it until I got it as a birthday gift (just another reason why birthdays are awesome). I'm so glad I got to read this. It's about two teenagers falling in love in the late 1980s in the middle of Nowheresville, America. It's actually really hard for them to just be together due to her family life being less than ideal and the nuances of the high school social hierarchy (hint: neither of them are anywhere near the top of that hierarchy). I appreciated that it was a very difficult romance which, if you think about it, seems to be what every teenager wants for some reason. A relationship isn't a real relationship unless it is reminiscent of Romeo and Juliet. As if they need something to prove to everyone else just how in love they really are.

These two don't do that and I am intensely grateful for that. I would have liked them much less if they had. They just want to be together, and when they succeed, they simply enjoy it. At the same time, not all of their problems are external. As humans do, they make mistakes and bicker and fight but it never changes the fact that they love each other.

I'm not normally a fan of the first person POV and I've heard third person limited can be tricky. My favorite thing about this book was the way it seamlessly switched between two points of third person POV. It was done so that Rowell never had to repeat anything (a common problem with multiple first person POVs) and it gave us a look at both characters' thoughts and reactions to situations and conversations. It worked very well and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I will say that the one thing about this book that really impressed me was the fact that it never made me roll my eyes at these two. Come on, you've all done it. You know those teenagers who bitch and moan and cry if they have to be separated for *gasp* a whole day! Yeah, these kids definitely fit into that category, but I didn't care. I was so sucked up in their lives and their relationship that I actually forgot to be the bitter spinster that I am. Darn it all!

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

Written by Himself

The biggest thing I think I took away from this book is my liberal use of the word "slave". I think we all tend to throw that word around a lot and it certainly seems to apply in certain situations. I know the current economy certainly makes me feel like a slave to whatever low-paying job I can get. That was particularly true with my last job which I really really really hated. Thank goodness I have since gained much better employment, even if it still doesn't use my very expensive and hard-earned B.A.

However, no matter how disappointed we might be in our current situations, there is simply no comparison to being treated like someone's property. If I get an offer for a better job, I am free to leave my current employer whether they like it or not. I have enough to eat (something I always try to remember to be grateful for) and there are laws in place which prevent employers from mistreating their employees, much less whipping them.

The thing I found most surprising was Douglass's statement that, in his experience, religious slaveowners were the worst. According to him, they were the most brutal and cowardly slave-owners out there. I found this interesting because I always wondered how people could justify slavery and call themselves Christians. I know they had their excuses but this particular observation made me wonder if the brutality was an effect of the hypocrisy. Did they know, deep down, that what they were doing was wrong? And, if they did maybe that prompted them to be more cruel than they otherwise might have been. After all, it is common for people to go to extremes when trying to convince themselves of something.

Surviving the Confederacy

Rebellion, Ruin and Recover - Roger and Sara Pryor During the Civil War

by John C. Waugh

I love this book. For a nonfiction book, I was surprised at what an easy read it is. The author's narrative flow was excellent. He relied heavily on memoirs and diaries from women who lived in the South during the Civil War and I loved that because it gave me an inside view of what was going on and how they all felt about it. I had known how awful things got to be in the South during the Civil War, particularly towards the end, but it gives it a whole new meaning to hear first hand accounts of it.

As it happens, Roger and Sara Pryor were in most of the exciting parts of the war. Roger was there during the firing on Fort Sumter and was even offered to fire the first shot (he declined on account of the fact that his state had not yet formally seceded and that was probably for the best for his life after the war ended). Sara followed Roger pretty much everywhere he went. By the time Grant laid siege to Petersburg, they were both there. Sara was living in a relative's house and Roger was fighting for General Lee.

Neither of them were present for the burning of Richmond, but some of their friends were and Waugh provides some excellent first-hand accounts of that event through letters the Pryors received.

The book contains a brief history and lineage of both Roger and Sara Pryor. It begins their story in detail about a decade before the war starts. For several years, Roger was a Congressman and so both of them met and befriended powerful people in Washington and they both witnessed (and Roger was party to) the bickering that went on on the Congress floor which eventually led to secession and the war.

Overall, this book painted a vivid picture of two characters living during one of the most fascinating times in our country's history. It also brought to life the time period, including information on the fashion of the time (and how that compared to what Southern women were often forced to wear) during the war. It made me feel as though I knew what it was like to live there during those times and it gave me a sense of the strength of Southern women of the time. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone. Absolutely anyone.

Uncle Tom's Cabin

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Okay, so I'm still working on novel #1 but, while that's in the editing process, I'm researching novel #2 which is going to be about the Civil War. As a consequence, there will be a whole bunch of books about the Civil War appearing on this blog for which I apologize. Or you're welcome, depending on how you view it. It is also a distinct possibility that I will never stop researching the Civil War. The more books about it I read, the more books about it I discover that I want to read.

I decided I needed to read this since Lincoln so famously (and not entirely unjustly) accused Stowe of starting the Civil War by writing and publishing this book. It was widely read at the time it was published and widely discussed so, it only made sense that I should read it for myself to see what all the fuss was about.

I think the biggest lesson for me here was that abolitionist does not equal not racist (pardon the double negative). It was actually pretty amusing in that Stowe clearly thought she was not being racist. Yet there are scenes in which black people remark on how smart white people are. Throughout the novel there are numerous references to their "childlike" and "simple" natures. She tries to put a rosy light on all of it but mostly it just comes off sounding condescending.

Overall, it was a bit heavy on the message for me but I suppose that's to be expected. Having grown up in a world where it is undeniably clear that slavery is wrong, period, of course I would get tired of someone telling me over and over what is already so obvious. To be fair, it probably wouldn't have gotten the attention it did in the 1850s if Stowe hadn't insisted on beating her reader over the head with that idea. I also found the religious message to be a bit much, but that's personal taste.

In addition, I found the book a little hard to swallow because it was so melodramatic. However, that is consistent with literature of the time period so I can't really hold that against her. But that doesn't mean I had to stop rolling my eyes every time she conjured some image which, to her readers, must have seemed heroic but, by today's standards, is considered cheesy.

After all this, you might be surprised to find that, overall, I did like it. I won't read it again, but I found it a fast and engaging read (minus the preachy parts). There were some likable characters, although I didn't get emotionally attached to any of them to care when they died. On the other hand, that may just have been because of the massive foreshadowing Stowe used every time she killed a character. It was a bit of a turn off, but I think that just makes me a product of my generation, in which everything has to be a SURPRISE!!!