BEDA 5: Books and my opinions on them (no spoilers, I promise)

My current pile 'to read' pile of books. I got pretty ambitious.

I have this problem with books that I really like to read them, but I rarely sit down to read for more than an hour at a time if I have a working internet connection/plans for my day. I've been slowly getting over this and with this has come lots of ambition to read and friends who periodically make piles of books for me in the library.

I've read a substantial amount of books in the past month, so I figured I would go over some of them and what I thought of them:

Mostly Harmless by Douglas Adams: After around two years of causual reading, I finally finished the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. It's definitely helped foster my appreciation for quirky things. Words cannot describe my love for this. I have such respect for Douglas Adams for creating (absolutely ridiculous) setting after setting and having it all fit together and still have some believability.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald: I was rereading this for the second time because even with wikipedia, I was in a huge pit of confusion. It's great, but I feel like everything is going over my head and that I still don't quite 'get it.' I feel like it's the type of book that all the symbols are actually purposely implanted there by the author and not just figments of an English teacher's imagination. I like it but I can't get over the feeling that in many places it's trying too hard to be extremely pretentious. I like that I read it because now I can make the occasional reference to it.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury: This was a really short read and I didn't like it as much as other people seem to. It felt a bit bland and lacking in details (somewhat intentionally, I think), in a format like it was almost like it was written for a children's reading level. I suppose that it's purpose is to be thought provoking, but it just didn't speak to me very much. Not that it went over my head, but that the message it was trying to get across wasn't applicable to me.

1984 by George Orwell: Unlike Fahrenheit 451, 1984 far exceeded my expectations. The setting was quite intricate but well maintained throughout the book. I felt like I was sucked into not only a completely different world, but was edging in on a different mind set. I was terrified while reading a lot of it but genuinely awed by it ('enjoyed' doesn't seem like the right word) and I feel like I'm a better person for reading it. Also totally prepared for studying the Cold War in History this year.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling: I've been slowly rereading the Harry Potter series over the past few months. I first read the series three years ago* and haven't read it or watched the movies since (with the exception of the movies that have been in theaters). This time around, I like that I'm rediscovering them from the point of view of seventeen year old me instead of fourteen year old me. Our points of view are quite different. I've determined that Harry Potter will just always be amazing.

*My Christian school told me from a young age that Harry Potter was evil so I was late on the band wagon after realizing that a book about a young orphaned wizard couldn't possibly be that evil.

And that is all I have time for today, folks, as it's nearing midnight.
Love,
-J-

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