Book Reviews, Pt. 2

Hooray! I’ve done it – read 24 new books in 2016. Good job, me. I’ve learned a lot from reading this year – and please, George R. R. Martin, can you hurry up and finish the last Game of Thrones book already??!

Here are a few short reviews of the rest of the 26 (yes, I’m an overachiever) books that I read in the second half of the year – reviews and opinions of notable books from the first half are here!

A Song of Ice and Fire series, George R. R. Martin
– Again, I’m surprised at how much I liked this series and how committed I am to the characters. There are definitely characters that I think are useless (Daenerys, even though she is a BA Queen and a strong female character, has a pretty useless storyline on the other side of the sea. But hopefully worlds will collide soon.) Definitely wouldn’t recommend to everyone, but if you’re hooked within the first half of the first book, keep reading! Don’t get discouraged by the length of the books!

Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
– I didn’t like this book, and I don’t understand why it got all the hype that it did (and still does). I understand that it is an interesting portrait of a young Black woman in the United States and all the racism and discouragement that comes with that, but the heart of the novel lies with the romantic relationship between the two main characters which is boring. I’d rather just read the first half of this novel.

Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
– This book took a while to get through, and I’m still not sure how to fully process it. BUT, I was reading the Wikipedia article on it afterwards and I learned that not only does it play an important part in the movie Serendipity (a classic, and I knew this already) – but that it is also mentioned in How I Met Your Mother! And then I realized, that the plot of Love in the Time of Cholera is actually very similar to Serendipity and How I Met Your Mother! So that made me appreciate the book more. And the two other things too. Pretty clever, producers. Except in Serendipity no one really dies and no one is super promiscuous (Spoilers? Whatever.) so I guess it’s not as similar, but the theme of star-crossed lovers who are supposedly meant to be together is there.

Dream Team, Jack McCallum
– As a somewhat still new basketball fan, I didn’t grow up watching or really understanding the significance of Michael Jordan (I watched Space Jam for the first time in my twenties) or Scottie Pippen, and only knowing what the Dream Team was because I had a puzzle with their likenesses. My dad would sit next to me and point out all of them, and I could name Malone, Magic, and Bird, but not know who they really were. So I’m glad I read this book and I’m glad that because of them, the NBA is where it is now. I’m also a big fan of Larry Bird now. And I’m glad that basketball season is finally back! (Except not so glad that the Warriors got blown out in their first game…)

And I just did a Google search and I’m pretty sure this is the puzzle. Ha! How fun.