Project 50: October (belated)

“Red Planet” by Robert A. Heinlin
This book was a little confusing to me, not really in terms of plot, but there would be parts that were going really well, but suddenly the main character and the secondary main character would switch personalities, and I’d be thrown off. I also think that the author took quite a few creative liberties with science to make a colony on Mars livable, and threw in a few random plot twists that hung there awkwardly for too long and when they were finally resolved, were pretty worthless. You know, what I didn’t like about this book was that it was so similar to the writing that I used to do when I was 9 or 10. Painful. C-

“Matilda” by Roald Dahl
I started reading some books that I’d read when I was younger, to see what they were like when I was old enough to get everything. Matilda is a cute tale of a girl genius (yay girl geniuses!) who doesn’t rage against the people who put her down and call her a twit. Nope, she just gets even. Everyone gets their comeuppance, although I have to say that the magical powers at the end are a little too deus ex machina for me. B


“Freak the Mighty” by Rodman Philbrick
I remember this being really inspirational to me when I was young, but reading it again, I can’t really remember why. I know that my best friend and I made up our own dictionaries, or at least the letter A and B. As a kid, Freak’s imagination and courage in the face of illness and danger were something that I really wanted to access, but as an adult, it just seems really sad and tragic. I also felt like the way that other people treated Max was a little bit over the top. Maybe it works differently for kids. B-

In November, all I finished was "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" by Jonathan Safran Foer, which I have already reviewed and stand by it as being one of the best books I have ever read.