Growing up I didn't have a huge love of reading. Maybe that is where my one son gets it from. I also had these sisters that LOVED to read and were crazy fast at it. It was a joke that when we would get books for Christmas, they would ask to just read my book first in a couple hours and then they could go read their crazy big novels.
Luckily as I got older, I fell in love with reading and getting to escape into another world. I liked picking a book that seemed interesting to me, reading it at my own pace and getting lost in a place foreign to my own. I have a lot of friends that have joined book clubs. Read a book a month and then get together and discuss it. I like the idea of this. However, truth be told I think it stresses me out to have a deadline attached to reading and then there is the whole problem with having to pick a book for the group.
This is where The Kite Runner comes in. I just finished reading this book today. I know, I know it came out in 2003 and they have already made a movie out of it so I am once again behind the curve. I liked the book. I felt like it was a very emotionally moving story and taught me a lot about a place and a people that I only seem to hear snippets about on the news. I even sat in bed last night telling my husband about the story, which I never do.
But would I recommend it to a book club or a friend? I don't know. Here is why. How do I recommend something like that to people I care about when there are parts in the book that I wish I never read. I wish I had been warned and someone had said in nicer words that this is what happens and don't read page 23. I so wish every book out there would have a label on it with a rating. For example: This book is Rated R for the use of foul language (I swear it's worse for me in writing!) and explicit sexual content and rape of a child!! The sad thing is the rest of the book was great. But I swear it seems there are so many books like that. If you just don't read page 56 THAN the rest is good.
I read a book and there was one page that had all this profanity that I took a permanent magic marker and blacked the whole page out. It was my book and I could do with it what I wanted and somehow breathed easier knowing that was gone and I loved the rest of the book.
Am I the only one that feels this way? Is there some website or source that I can look up a book title and get some type of rating or warning? Help..I want to read..I really do love it...I just hate being afraid to pick up a book and wonder what is really in there.
5 comments:
That's funny because I'm reading A Thousand Splendid Suns right now for book club. It's written by the same author and it's supposedly not as disturbing, but I'm still nervous.
Join Goodreads on the web. You can read a lot of reviews by people to get a sense of the tone of a book. Also, I always check books out from the library. That way, if I hate it, I can just turn it back in. I also have a rule--if I flip through a book and see swear words or offensive stuff on just those pages, chances are, there are more throughout the book and I'm not going to like it.
that's the beauty of a book club with people of like values. The women of my book club are very good at leading us to good quality, clean fiction. We know each others' thresholds and we help each other stay clear of bothersome stuff.
I can't bring myself to see Kite Runner the movie because of how disturbed I was about the book. Thousand Splendid Suns isn't an easy book, but there is at least redemption and somehow that helped me with it more. You can always look on my book club's website. We list everything we've read since I was pregnant with CW and almost everything there is safe.
I am like that, too. I have friends who tell me it was a great book, but not to read it because they know I can't handle the filth that is in about every book. I wish I knew of a good website for books, too. Let me know if you find one. For now, I stick to children's and juvenile lit. :-)
That's so funny-I never was a reader (I'm still not) but the very first book I read for a book club was the Kit Runner. I joined the book club to get me reading again. Wasn't it good? I think it's hard to recommend books because everyone is different in their tolerance of what's in it. I had an easier time accepting parts of this book because it was about real life in another country. But if the same info was in a book about bad things like that in America, I may not like it. But goodreads is where most people review them.
Have a great reading! I have A Thousand Slendid Suns if you want to read that one too.
I remember watching The Kite Runner movie with Travis and he turned to me a said, "You read THIS book?" I hate when authors throw things in that are useless and distrubing. I love book clubs, but I too, hate the deadline aspect. I read The Help a while back and really enjoyed it.
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