Showing posts with label bird. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bird. Show all posts

May 20, 2014

Review--Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
A girl named Boy, a girl named Snow and a girl named Bird.  Three unique names for three unique individuals.  It's 1953 and Boy is living in New York, the daughter of a rat catcher.  She has never known her mother.  Boy "was a girl with a white-blonde pigtail hanging down over one shoulder..." When life with her father got to be too much, she packed her stuff and moved to the farthest place she could get on the bus, Flax Hill, CT.

Quickly, Boy made friends and met a man, Arturo Whitman.  Arturo has a daughter named Snow, who the whole town adored.  Shortly after Arturo and Boy are married, she becomes pregnant.  When she gives birth to her daughter, Bird, the Whitman family secrets soon come to light.

There is an underlying theme in this book with mirrors.  The women claim that they do not "see" themselves in them.  Is it because they are ghosts? Or is it that their family secrets run so deep that they find it hard to see themselves as they really are?

This book reminded me of books I had to read for school.  I enjoyed the storyline as a whole, but reading it, I felt as though there were questions I was supposed to be searching the answers for instead of just enjoying the book.  There are so many secrets throughout the entire book with the biggest secret coming at the end.  Told in three sections by Boy, Bird, and then Boy again, this is very interesting story about race in the north in the 50's and 60's.



May 15, 2014

Trying to Keep Up!!

There are so many great books out there.  From recommendations from friends, family, and Goodreads to the books selected as a Group Read, plus all of the book that are already on my personal book list.  I have 3135 on that list(I started keeping it before there was a Goodreads or Leafmarks).  Out of that 3135 I have read only 231. I'm sure I have read more books than that, but that is what I have on record.  I started this list back in 2003 so anything previously read will not be on there, unless I added it after the fact.

I enjoy reading tremendously.  I want to read just about anything and everything I can.  I like Best Sellers and Indie books.  I like discovering something new.  I wish I could read faster and that I had more time to read, but with 3 kids, time is limited.  Im trying to get through at least 2 books a week.  One that I read and one that I listen to, although this week, I haven't even touched the iPod.  Right now I'm reading Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi.
 I started on May 9th, and am about halfway through.  Definitely not going to finish this one in a week.

I took a quiz on bookbrowse.com about What's Your Reading Personality?  It said I was an Exacting Reader..
"The expression 'so many books, so little time!' sums up your life.  You love books, but you rarely have as much time to read as you'd like-so you're very particular about the books you choose."  Yes, and thank you!!  I hope this summer when there isn't as much running around to do with kids in school, I will have a little more time to get some reading done.

You can take the quick on BookBrowse  yourself by clicking here.