Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

Best. Book. Ever.

Okay, so maybe that's taking it a little far, but it's definitely the best book I've read this summer. By the time I finished it I felt like I was saying good-bye to a dear friend; and really, isn't that the point of a good book? Even more impressive than the fact that she drew me in so well is the fact that it's her memoirs. It's not a fictional story (although I'm sure some parts are fabricated and for sure all the names are changed), so she doesn't have the ability to make up different things and incorporate lots of foreshadowing and symbols.

I loved how this book made me laugh out loud at times, and made me think deeply about my life at other times. I loved her descriptions of the food she ate, the people she met, and the life she lived.

This book is a very spiritual book, but not in a religious sort of way. Regardless of what your religious beliefs are, you can identify with her search for peace and balance. It definitely made me think about my own beliefs and if I was really living in line with what I believed. There are so many great passages in there that really make you stop and think about how beautiful it is that we live in a country where someone can go on a journey like she went on and still be accepted by her friends and family.

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

Here's the problem with setting a goal to read every book on some list. You'll inevitably end up reading some book you know you're going to hate. This play is a great case in point. In my Modern English Literature (English as in from England and her former colonies) class we had to read a bunch of stuff by Samuel Beckett because my teacher was in love with him. It was then that I discovered that I really REALLY don't love experimental/modernist theater. I like my plays to have a story-line that involves action and something actually happening. Samuel Beckett's plays are hopeless and--to me at least--completely pointless.

His characters repeat their lives day after day and they're always in some post-apocolyptical situation where the world as we know it has ended and life is awful. I'm sorry, but I just don't ever see life getting that bad.

So anyways, moral of the story is: Unless you really like modern/experimental drama, don't read Samuel Beckett...

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski

I finally finished this book!! It took me a couple weeks, but I finally did it. It's a good book, but if you're going to read it, be sure to read it when you won't have to rush through it. It's overwhelming... and slow. I know for sure that it's one I'll have to read later to really understand. I read it when I was shellshocked from the wedding and had a major cold.

This is the author's debut novel, and for a debut it's amazing. I'm excited to read his work later on and see what he develops into. I just feel like it was such a big, slow moving novel, that I had to speed read to get into it, and by speed reading I lost a lot of the depth. In a few months or a year I'll go back and read it when I can take my time going through it. For now though, I'm just excited to get into something a little shorter.