What are hyped books? I decided to look at librarything.com's Hot This Month's list of books. Of the top ten, I actually read 5 this year so I feel qualified to discuss 5 Hyped books.
I am in the middle of reading this novel this week, but it is definitely worth the hype. I didn't let myself see the movie because I wanted to read the book first, natch, and then I waited quite a while for the book from the library. But I am devouring it, and loving it. Mind you, I am a science geek, so I enjoy this stuff, but just the suspense, and the ethical issues of sending people so far in space, makes it a great read. Plus because the movie has already been cast, I get to picture Matt Damon while I read.
As a suspense novel, this really worked. I loved the unreliable narrator, unreliable because of her own poor drunken memory. It was hard to watch her make such terrible decisions, but enough possibilities for the murderer were presented, and the events just kept rolling along. I read this on a stormy, stormy March break and it was the perfect unputdownable book.
I also read this on the March Break last year, and I rated it highly at librarything, but my over arching memory isn't as high, but I know I really liked it as I read it. It was a quiet, family drama of a family getting over a tragedy. The book starts with the line "Lydia is dead." and proceeds to unravel what led to this point.
Technically, the last book I read in 201a4 but so close! This is a somewhat optimistic look at a future after a deadly flu wipes out the world. I really liked the Shakespearean troupe that travels the land like something right out of the Elizabethan era. Mandel's world building was fascinating, and how the flu spread, the terror at the beginning was really good. Following people that were associated with an actor who died on stage in a play in Toronto was good perspective.
I keep saying I don't want to read any more WW2 novels, but then another one comes along with hype, and I succumb. Two children, a young blind French girl, and an older orphan German boy are getting through the war in occupied France. There is art history, small town French resistance, evil Nazis, (there are always evil Nazis) and two parallel stories that are hurtling towards each other.
