The Five - Books

READER BEWARE: Opinions Are Expressed Below

I love to read, but I have managed to compile this list of books that I consider to be MY top five favorite reads. The synopsis for each book was provided by the Barnes and Noble website. For some of the books, I provided my own insight as well.

1.
The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald

***The novel chronicles the relationship of Anthony Patch, a Harvard-educated, aspiring writer, and his beautiful young wife, Gloria. While they wait for Anthony’s grandfather to die and pass his millions on to them, the young couple enjoys an endless string of parties, traveling, and extravagance. Beginning with the pop and fizz of life itself, The Beautiful and the Damned quickly evolves into a scathing chronicle of a dying marriage and a hedonistic society in which beauty is all too fleeting. A fierce parable about the illusory quality of dreams, the intractable nature of reality, and the ruin wrought by time, The Beautiful and the Damned eerily anticipates the dissipation and decline that would come to the Fitzgeralds themselves before the decade had run its course.***

My Take: Even though The Great Gatsby is a close contender, I view this book as Fitzgerald's greatest work. It's engaging (and heartbreaking) to witness the deterioration of the two beautiful leading characters.

2.

A Separate Peace by John Knowles

***Gene was a lonely, introverted intellectual. Phineas was a handsome, taunting, daredevil athlete. What happened between them at school one summer during the early years of World War II is the subject of A Separate Peace. A great bestseller for over twenty years, it is one of the most starkly moving parables ever written of the dark forces that brood over the tortured world of adolescence.***

My Take: The obsessive and paranoid darkness that consumes the main character is all too shocking. And the question is, were they more than just friends?

3.
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

***Guy Montag was a fireman whose job it was to start fires... The system was simple. Everyone understood it. Books were for burning ... along with the houses in which they were hidden. Guy Montag enjoyed his job. He had been a fireman for ten years, and he had never questioned the pleasure of the midnight runs nor the joy of watching pages consumed by flames... never questioned anything until he met a seventeen-year-old girl who told him of a past when people were not afraid. Then he met a professor who told him of a future in which people could think... and Guy Montag suddenly realized what he had to do!***

4.

The Giver by Lois Lowry

***In the story of a seemingly utopian city in a futuristic world, Jonas is singled out to receive special training from The Giver--who alone holds memories of pain and pleasure in life.***

5.
Gone by Michael Grant

***In the blink of an eye. Everyone disappears. GONE. Except for the young. Teens. Middle schoolers. Toddlers. But not one single adult. No teachers, no cops, no doctors, no parents. Just as suddenly, there are no phones, no Internet, no television. No way to get help. And no way to figure out what's happened. Hunger threatens. Bullies rule. A sinister creature lurks. Animals are mutating. And the teens themselves are changing, developing new talents—unimaginable, dangerous, deadly powers—that grow stronger by the day. It's a terrifying new world. Sides are being chosen, a fight is shaping up. Townies against rich kids. Bullies against the weak. Powerful against powerless. And time is running out: On your birthday, you disappear just like everyone else...***

My Take: This book shows the terrifying adolescent struggle of humans versus human nature. The author seems to draw inspiration from Lord of the Flies and the Left Behind series.



WORST BOOK EVER...

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

***The Sound and the Fury is made up of undifferentiated streams of consciousness that ultimately turn out to be the inner voices of a family's siblings. Its construction is so masterful that the last sentence refers the reader back to the first one, as any perfect work of art might do. Sound has the earmarks of a modern psychological study, although the book was published in 1929. It is a dramatic and harrowing tale of the Compson family's pathology—primarily in the form of incest and incestuous thoughts.***

My Take: The entire first section, told through the mentally disabled mind of Benjy, gives the reader a bitter taste of what is to be expected...absolute crap.

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