The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

This is a Pulitzer Prize winner.  That doesn't always mean that it will be a book I think was worth reading. This one is definitely worth reading.

The book follows our protagonist from the age thirteen until twenty seven.  His life is full of upheaval and tragedy and really bad choices by him and the adults in his life. It is the story of a boy and a painting called The Goldfinch.

The language of the book is that kind of poetic prose where you finish a page and feel like it was poetry when really it was nothing but a very well-described and beautifully rendered couple of paragraphs. Quite often I had to re-read a passage because the chaos described was translated so well that I wasn't certain I'd caught everything in the scene.  On the same vein, one character was a very chaotic, wild and fast person and I found myself reading his dialogue at a faster rate than the rest.

In order to avoid spoilers I won't give anything more away except to say that if you aren't freaked out by the idea of reading 775 pages, you should definitely read this. If you are freaked out by 775 pages, you should work on that because there are so many big books to love.

Love Medicine

Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich

This is the first book in a series of Native American books by Erdrich.

This book was layed out like a bunch of vignettes that eventually entwine and create a full story of a community that is full of secrets, love, contention and difficulty.

This is not a happy book but it is worth reading.