Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

This book is one of those that people will always recommend to you. Since I tend to avoid reading reviews before I read a book (so that I can read it with an open mind and not looking for the flaws other people have seen) all I knew was that this was a "must read." From the title I assumed that it would be the desperate love story of two people who discover their love during a huge cholera epidemic (spoiler warning: It isn't). Instead, it's a beautiful tale of two people's lives as they live their lives after an adolescent love affair.

The thing I loved the most about the book is the maturity of all of it. Marquez approaches their lives with a realistic look at what happens. I don't want to say too much about what actually happens in the book because I don't want to ruin it for anyone because there are some things that happen that will surprise you. All I have to say is that as the novel came to a close I was rooting against the "happy ending." Not that I wanted the characters to lead loney, miserable lives, but because I wanted the man in the novel to accept the woman's initial decision. I didn't want him to win.

(As a side note you should probably know that I don't generally approve of people wasting away their lives in pursuit of someone who has rejected them... move on already and find a life of your own! It will make you much more attractive to that person and you'll be happier yourself.)

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...