A Book a Week...So Far

Here's a quick run-through of the ten books I've read so far in the Book-a-Week Quest. While I don't rate books, in this "round up" I'm listing these books from best to worst, along with a quick blurb from my "reviews." Clicking on the title should (and I emphasize "should") take you to the full "review."

1. Of Mice and Men -- Short, sweet, and to the point. Clocking in at less than 100 pages, it is certainly a simple story, but a touching (and shocking) one, detailing the lengths one will go to in order to protect a friend.
2. Revolutionary Road -- Yates excels at dialogue. So much of it rings so true. Entirely believable, I could hear the words being spoken as I read it.
3. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close -- By the end, I really did come to care for this odd little kid, and I was genuinely moved by this story of loss and love. Now, it's still a weird read, and it's definitely not for all, but it was certainly interesting...definitely the most "experimental" book I've ever read.
4. The Eyre Affair -- The quote from the cover by the Wall Street Journal says that it's an amalgamation of "Monty Python, Harry Potter, Stephen Hawking, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer"
5. To Kill a Mockingbird -- Characters were well developed and interesting, the writing style was easy-to-read, and the story was fine, though a little dated (to be expected, however).
   
6. Of Human Bondage -- Maugham's writing style is very "readable." There's not a whole lot of superfluous descriptions and details, but he does have a tendency to go off on philosophical or artistic tangents.
7. Pride and Prejudice -- I don't know if it's Austen in general or this book in particular, but I think that if you're born with a 'Y' chromosome, you're just not going to enjoy it as much as those missing that gene.
8. Hocus Pocus -- It's just random thoughts. There was no cohesion here...names were thrown about here and there, were forgotten about for a hundred pages, and then mentioned again as if I was supposed to remember them.
9. The Reader -- I can see why this was an Oprah Book Club selection (my first in that prestigious *pause for laughs* club). Very melodramatic. Oprah strikes me as someone who would fall head over heels for a romance between a female Nazi and a teenage boy...As I type that sentence I'm actually not sure whether I was trying to be funny or not.
10. The 39 Steps -- Author Buchan's writing style is not the least bit interesting at all. At times he's way too descriptive and at times he is much too straight-forward...Dialogue is written in varying English dialects and I literally could not understand what people were saying...Maybe it worked in Britain in 1915, but it didn't work in 2009 America.

Short story Rear Window probably fits in between 9 and 10. By the way, I'm only one week behind on the book-a-week quest which is a whole lot better than I thought I'd be at this point. This may actually be an achievable goal...