I'm such a slacker

I finished this book a week ago, but with school/work/trying to maintain a healthy relationship with my spouse, my blogging is a little delayed.

This book was amazing. I've been meaning to read it for a while, and when my parents got it for me for christmas, I knew it was fate. 

Greg Mortenson is an alpinist-turned-activist and educator. After a failed attempt at summiting K2 he was inspired by the people of Pakistan, and incredibly upset by the educational system in the rural areas he had traveled. So...he raised money and built a school....and then another.....and then another. The book Three Cups of Tea was written by Mortenson and David Oliver Relin and is the story of his trials and tribulations, and of his greater successes as he struggled to bring education to the most neglected regions of central Asia.

This story is inspiring and heartwrenching all at the same time. It's the story of how one man can truly make a difference.

I don't feel good.

The ninth book I read this year was the saddest thing I've ever experienced. The book was My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult. I know this book has been out forever, and I've been meaning to read it, I have. My darling friend Tori loves Picoult with a passion, and I've been missing her terribly since I moved back to Oregon in September, so I read it in her honor. 

Firstly, I'd like to say this is a remarkably well written book. I love it. If you aren't familiar with it, it is the story of a young girl who was genetically modified as an embryo so that she could be a donor for her older sister, who was diagnosed with leukemia as a toddler.

At the age of thirteen, she gets tired of all the surgeries, all the needles, all the donations that she was forced to make, so she hires a lawyer to sue her parents for medical emancipation. 

Each chapter of the story has a different narrator, which I think adds a lot of depth. Her parents, lawyer, older brother, etc, all narrate chapters...and I feel like it keeps those characters from becoming shallow. It would be easy to villanize her parents, but it's hard to...especially her father who is so loveable.

The story is sweet and shows the inevitable strength of young women, but something about the ending made me so upset.

I don't ever want to read it again.

seven and eight

So, I've been slacking.

Over the last few days I finished two fantastic books. They are by Authors that I have long held amorous feelings towards, and these books did not disappoint.

The first was Augusten Burrough's Dry. Many of you know of Burroughs from his hit novel-turned-movie Running With Scissors. But in all honesty, that's my least favorite of his memoirs. He is honest, witty, and his humor comes from a dark, dank, hole. I love it. Dry is the memoir of his process of becoming sober. The book opens with descriptions of his gratuitous drinking, and his colleagues at the advertising firm where he works forcing him to check into a rehab facility. They suggested the Betty Ford Clinic, but Augusten chooses to go to what he thinks is a far more glamorous facility for gays. 

The story is rich with sensibility, a diverse cast of individuals, and full of life lessons for all of us. Whether you have a drinking problem or not, this book will change your life.

The second book I read was another one of Alice Sebold's fantastic novels, The Almost Moon. As she does in many of her pieces, she gives away the ending on the first page. The Almost Moon is the story of a slightly bitter and horribly confused adult woman who murders her elderly sociopath of a mother by smothering her with a towel. The novel is terrifying, and it's amazing to watch the Antagonist, Helen, as she spirals downward in the 24 hours that come after her mother's death.

It's a fantastically well written novel, that will make your stomach churn.

Almost done with book nine. :)