Books of the month.

It's been a very productive month for reading in February, mainly because I desperately needed the distractions from revision stress.

The Virgin Suicides - Jeffrey Eugenides
It's been a while since I first read the book, written by the author of my favourite book, Middlesex. It's improved with time in my opinion. The Lisbon girls are so rich and dream-like, it's impossible to imagine why on earth they would go to the lengths they did. No solid explanation is given for the suicides, but it works better that way. Not only is it a fantastic story of depression in young girls, it's a slightly creepy tale of obsession. The boys are so obsessed with the girls that they note everything about them that they can, think about them constantly and even steal one of their used tampons (ew.) It's poetic, darkly funny and a book that all teenage girls should read.

The Dead Girl's Dance - Rachel Caine
When I read, I like to balance the serious and relevant literature with the low-brow trash I am sadly so fond of. The 2nd book in the Morganville Vampires is just such a book. It's easy to read, fun, well plotted and total trash. Sure, it's not exactly serious or original but I loved it.

The Book Thief - Markus Zusak
I can't believe this is classified as a children's book. It's so good that I don't think you should restrict it to young kids. Liesil is a young girl who is sent to live with a German couple during the 2nd World War. Grieving for the loss of her brother, she retreats into books, learning how to read and subsequently stealing anything she can get her hands on. Narrated by the wry, pensive voice of Death, it's a very detailed story with an ending that packed an emotional punch to beat The Green Mile.


Antony And Cleopatra - Shakespeare
The Advanced Higher course requires 2 plays of your choice (we have to do Shakepseare at my school but it changes depending on the school. Others offer Tennessee Williams) and this year for us it's this and Othello. I much prefer the latter. The relationship depicted in this play is very complicated and plays like a childish game of cat and mouse. She's an over-the-top needy drama queen and he's a submissive fool who's given up everything for this gorgeous girl. Eventually it destroys them both. I prefer Othello because it's so deceitful (thanks to Iago) and like a car crash to read. If Iago was a real man, I'd strangle him! There's a wonderful simplicity in Othello that isn't present in Antony And Cleopatra, which has too many characters and a pace that's hard to follow. The characters are also less likeable. I wrote an essay on the male/female relationships depicted in both plays today, so I might post it here when I get my grade back.


The Laughing Corpse - Laurell K. Hamilton
Like I said, I balance the good with the trash. This is as trashy as literature gets - a vampire hunter called Anita Blake who raises the dead for a living solves a crime about a killer zombie. It's so trashy I feel like they should invent another word for it. But it's so much fun to read I can't help but love it. It's cool to see a short, sarcastic woman as a heroine too (granted I haven't read past the 8th book, after which apparently things get really bad and she turns into a slutty bitch).

Currently I'm reading a 973 page book about the building of a cathedral during the Middle Ages. It's called The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. It's very entertaining and a fantastically written story about something I wouldn't usually find interesting, but since I'm so busy this monh I doubt I'll finish it by the end of March.