Book Review- The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
Finally. I finished the last book I had chosen for the New Classics Challenge. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon. It took me much longer to read than I thought it would. It shouldn’t have surprised me, though, it is 656 pages long in not very big print.

So, what did I think?

Well, I loved it. It had a great combination of fantasy and historical fiction. The story follows cousins Sammy Clay and Joe Kavalier while they find success as comic book writers/artists in New York City in the time surrounding WWII. Both have reasons to lose themselves in their created comic world of Empire City and live vicariously through their superheroes. Joe is trying to help his family escape from Nazi occupied Czechoslovakia and Sammy is coming to terms with his sexuality.

There are chapters thrown in throughout where they diverge from Sammy and Joe and tell their Comics characters stories. Even these, however, give us insight into Sammy and Joe since they put so much of themselves into them. Their main character is The Escapists who fights fictional versions of Nazis and Hitler. It is a way for Joe to fight against those he can’t do so for real. Also, the Escapists alter ego is Tom Mayflower who has a lame leg and walks with a cane. Sammy is hindered a bit by his own legs due to having polio as a child.

So many aspects of this book make it worthy of its Pulitzer Prize. The story of these two cousins is so intriguing and inspiring. It makes you believe that anyone can be a superhero. Superheroes are not only in comics and novels.

5/5

New Classics Challenge
AtoZ Challenge

WWII Challenge

New Classics Challenge-1 book short of complete

This is the last book for the New Classics Challenge that ends today. I have not finished it. I am on page 337 of 636. I don't think I can finish this before the end of today. So, I leave this challenge unfinished by 300 pages.

I really thought I was going to be able to finish. Oh well.
So here is how I did:





Read:
Holes, Louis Sachar
Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert
Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer
Practical Magic, Alice Hoffman
Bel Canto, Anne Patchett

Still Reading:
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon

Favorite book: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. Bel Canto was a close second.

2008 Challenge Wrap Up

This was my very first year of entering reading challenges. I enjoyed them all. I am also very excited that I was able to complete them.

Here's to next year's challenges.


The Bone Garden by Tess Gerritson
Frankenstein by Mary Shelly
Broken by Kelley Armstrong
Coraline by Neil Gaiman
Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr
Peeps by Scott Westerfeld



*July- Emma by Jane Austen
*August- The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
*September- The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
*October- Frankenstein by Mary Shelly
*November- Dubliners by James Joyce
*December- A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens



My list of books read for 2008 can be found here. 100 books. Check. :)


One more month and one more book for this one:



Read:
Holes, Louis Sachar
Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert
Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer
Practical Magic, Alice Hoffman
Bel Canto, Anne Patchett

To Read:
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon

Bel Canto- Book Review

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
A botched kidnapping attempt of a South American President, at a lavish birthday party for a Japanese business man, results in an unlikely hostage situation.

I really enjoyed soaking up every word of this book slowly and thoroughly. It is written so well and every part had some little detail I didn't want to miss.

I loved the relationship between the hostages and the terrorists and how it evolves over the months they are together in the grand house of the vice president. I loved how the music works as a way to communicate feelings and resolve tensions. Such a beautiful and tragic love story. How could anything good come out of a hostage situation? I imagined this as a movie directed as only Robert Altman could, in the manner of Gosford Park.

4/5

New Classics Challenge

Into Thin Air-Book Review

Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster by Jon Krakauer

You have to give a book 5 stars if you finish it in less than 2 days right?

This book had me on the edge of my seat the entire way through until 1:30am this morning. My eyes are feeling it now. I was so engrossed in these people who risk their lives to reach the summit of Mount Everest. It takes a certain type of person to put themselves and their bodies through such torture for 5 minutes on top of the world.

The sad and terrible turn of events on the mountain in 1996 was not a new story to me. I remembered when it happened, I have watched numerous Discovery shows about it and seen the IMAX movie Everest. However, I had not read this true personal account of one of the team members before. Jon Krakauer does a wonderful job of sharing his experience and making you understand the conditions on the mountain that spring.

This book made me cry, it made me angry, and it made me very thankful that my rock climbing, backpacking husband has no interest in taking up high altitude mountaineering.

This book is getting past on to him next to further convince him that he has no desire to climb mountains.

5/5

New Classics Challenge

Practical Magic- Book Review

Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman

I had absolutely no desire to read this book after having seen the movie based on it. The movie was silly and just not one I enjoyed. I kept seeing the book at the library and in bookstores and refused to pick it up even though the description on the jacket sounded like my kind of book.

This book was listed on the EW list of New Classics, so I decided to finally give it a chance. I am so glad I did. This book is a beautiful story with wonderful well-drawn characters with a bit of the fantastical thrown in. And unlike in the movie, the magic that surrounds the Owens' family is not the main part of this book. The sisters' relationships with each other, their aunts, kids and lovers are.

Hoffman's writing style is unique and refreshing. I love the snippets of the past and future as you read along in the present. I love how the magic happens around the characters, how it is ignored by some and embraced by others. It is inter-weaved perfectly into the story to where you don't know if it is real or not.

I did miss the aunts, though, which were the best part of the movie. I didn't expect them to have such a small, but critical part in the book.

4/5

New Classics Challenge

Holes- Book Review

I bought this book years ago when the movie came out but never actually read it. Haven't seen the movie yet, either.

It is the story of Stanley Yelnats, a young boy who always seems to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. It is this problem that gets him sent to Camp Green Lake. With the other boys he meets there, he begins his daily routine of digging holes.

It was hard to see where this could go. Boys digging holes in a dry lake bed? I wasn't sure it would keep me interested, but once I figure out that the Warden was actually looking for some thing out there, and staredt seeing the connections to Stanley and the back story, it became harder and harder to put it down.

Wonderful book, and a definite must read for kids and adults.

4/5


New Classics Challenge

new classics challenge

A while ago I posted this list of books from Entertainment Weekly and checked off the 12 books from that list of 100 that I had read.
Then today I found this challenge hosted by Joanna and have decided to participate.

So, I am to list 6 books from the list that I will read and review between Aug1st-Jan31st.

It is hard to pick but here they are:

11. Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer (1997)
29. Bel Canto, Anne Patchett (2001)
53. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon (2000)
78. Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert (2006)
84. Holes, Louis Sachar (1998)
99. Practical Magic, Alice Hoffman (1995)