I try to make it a point to keep up with reading a little bit of something non-school related, usually at night before going to sleep. It's a nice, relaxing end to the day, and it helps keep me feeling sane when everything starts to get bogged down by drug actions and neural pathways and what have you.
A life-changing tip, by the way? Libraries check out ebooks online now. It's amazing. I have access to the Huntsville library system and to the Cincinnati library, thanks to my dad, and between the two of them I'm pretty well satisfied. I simply download a book in EPUB format and load it onto my Nook and BOOM - I'm set to read for a while. It's actually all a bit overwhelming, honestly, as I tend to check out more than I can read at a given time, and then the checkout period expires and they disappear back into the interwebs without me having even gotten to look at anything. Sad face. Self control is apparently a difficult thing when it comes to online libraries.
Anyway, here are a few things that I've read in the past several months:
Girls in White Dresses seems to have gotten rather mixed reviews, but I will say that I really enjoyed it. I have a particular fondness for stories that center on and interweave the lives of multiple characters and this certainly fit that bill, even if we didn't spend large amounts of time with every single character. I thought the conceit was clever and the writing well-crafted. I liked that we hopped around from person to person so quickly. I liked that the girls were flawed; even when they were driving me crazy with their life/relationship choices, I still appreciated the development that went into their characters. Was it my favorite book ever? No. But it was still an enjoyable read, and it makes me want to explore more of Jennifer Close's work.
The Royal We - OMG. Okay. Okay. I'm mildly obsessed with this book at the moment. I had to put a hold on it through the library because so many people were wanting to read it, and the second I got that email telling me the ebook was checked out to my account, I started tearing through it. I'm not even ashamed to admit that I skimped on studying for my most recent exam because I was too caught up reading this. I have a deep-seated interest in the British royal family; I can't explain how it got started, but it's alive and well and getting me to wake up at 4 am to watch Prince William get married. I even wrote a term paper on the history of British royal relations with the media for an honors seminar in college [yes, that actually happened]. Anyway. Back to my point. This book is purely fluffy and fun and such an enjoyable read. The main characters are very well fleshed-out; the plot deviates enough from the actual story of William and Kate to keep you on your toes. All in all, I'd highly recommend it - particularly if you're on vacation and wanting something light and girly to keep you entertained without making you work your brain too much.
Room - Everyone has gone on and on and on with admiration and love for this book over the past few years, but when I finally got around to reading it, I wasn't really won over. The idea of an adult novel told by a 5-year-old boy is clever in theory, but not very practical in reality. Like, I understand the author's reasoning that she used this narrative device to help tone down some of the trauma of the subject matter...but it really just didn't work for me. I hated how Jack referred to everything as animate objects - like Table and Wardrobe and Meltedy Spoon. I really hated how Ma treated her own family in the second half of the book - I mean, you're not the only who has ever loved their kid. I just...urghhh. I admit, it was a very compelling story and certainly a page turner, but I just couldn't bring myself to like it. There were so many small things that bothered me, and the small things tend to be what make or break a book.
Brooklyn - Eh. Okay. This is one of the rare cases where I actually liked the movie adaptation more than the book. Eilis was so much whinier and pitiful in the novel; she didn't have any oomph to her, any inclination to take control of her own life instead of merely letting things happen to her. The book has quite a bit else going for it, outside of its blah protagonist. The other characters are quite interesting; the writing is lovely and vivid; the detail really makes me want to go to Ireland.
On Call: A Doctor's Days and Nights in Residency - This probably is not interesting to the average person, but I've been going through a phase lately involving mass consumption of doctor-penned nonfiction. I love reading about the actual lives and thoughts of physicians; it gives me motivation to keep going on days when I'm entirely fed up with school. I wouldn't say this is the greatest book ever, but it was an interesting read and I came away with a much clearer head about residency than I had previously. I thought the author got a bit whiny, I guess, at times when recounting her time in residency; there's only so much semi-morbid introspection I can handle in a book.
My Paris Dream - Admittedly I'm a sucker for just about anything related to France - and specifically to Paris - but I did really find this to be a fun read. It's a memoir-style account of the author's time living in Paris after graduating from college, and spans quite a good chunk of her life. You get a lot of stories - some frivolous, some not - about her various experiences. Kate Betts covers a lot of ground in this book - the title references her work in fashion while living in Paris, but she also goes into great detail about relationships, family, the city itself, as well as other parts of France, among other things. It left me dreaming of returning to Paris and wearing all the black clothes and speaking French to my heart's content.
