I am the Invisible Man!!

I am the Invisible Man!!

Saturday, February 6, 2010

A pair of book reviews

Well I've read 2 more books and they couldn't be on more opposite sides of the spectrum. The books I'm reviewing this week are "Are you there God? It's me, Margaret" by Judy Blume and "Crash" by J.G. Ballard. So if you have no wish to have the plots of these stories explained to you, I suggest you don't read anymore of this entry unless you don't mind knowing the plot. In that case, please feel free to read on.


First off, Judy Blume is an author I've heard of but never actually read anything of hers. What I thought was going to be a book mainly focused on religion due to the title is actually a book that is mostly about the perspective of a young adolescent girl. The story follows young Margaret as she arrives in a new town shortly before starting 6th grade. The plot isn't really focused on any one issue that Margaret eventually encounters but the only 2 themes that are more or less focused from beginning to end of the book are her talking to God and her and her friends' obsession over getting their periods. I was never a young girl, but I am venturing a guess that Blume did a fantastic job of assimilating what young girls talk about and do and fret over. It was an okay book but I probably wouldn't recommend anyone to read it unless they were a young girl worrying about getting their period or having trouble with their relationship with God.

I've read a Ballard book before called "The Day of Creation," which was a good book, but that's not why I picked up this book. I bought this book due to my fascination with books turned into movies. However, I was pretty surprised when I started reading this book to find out it had nothing to do with the Ang Lee film. It starts with the main character explaining how another character he meets later in the book has just died in a car crash in an attempt to kill himself and Elizabeth Taylor. The beginning of the book is set up Tarantino-style where they start with the end of the book and the rest of the book is a prequel to the beginning of the book. The actual chronological story starts with the main character Ballard getting in an auto accident and finding his life opened to the beauty of car crashes and how it opens up his sexuality. Eventually he meets the character who is obsessed with Elizabeth Taylor, Vaughan, and his own obsession with car crashes and sex is taken up to Vaughan's level. After I started reading the book, I ventured to look at the back cover and read that the book was Ballard's critique of technology and how it's taking over our lives. But after reading the book, I don't see how that critique stands unless I missed a major metaphor because the entire book is dedicated to people who have been in car crashes, who purposely get in car crashes solely for sexual pleasure and I didn't see what it had to do with technology unless Ballard assumes that we are all erotically turned on by crashing automobiles. The story was weird and unless you like weird I wouldn't recommend this book either.

That's all for now, not much new to enter into the mess that is my life except for maybe I'm becoming an alcoholic. Okay, not really an alcoholic but my tolerance for beer has risen quite dramatically and it takes quite a bit to get me drunk now-a-days, which isn't horrible but it's definitely not good. Plus on a somewhat unrelated note, I just may start posting some of my writing on here. It's been a while since I've written anything but recently being featured in a friend's blog and seeing a pretty positive response to my stuff, I plan on taking time out to write some new stuff. Otherwise, I hope everyone's year is going well and if not, only 326 more days until 2011 gets here.

2 comments:

  1. lol yay for post the Judy Blume book! I hope you read some of her other work, 'Tales of a fourth-grade nothing' was my personal fave. I think there was a whole series of them...

    The other one I might have to borrow...whenever I get through all the books I have...so it maybe never. :(

    Thanks for the tips on memorization, I think yours might actually work the best.

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  2. I had to come by and tell you that your comment made me snort and spit coffee all over my desk yesterday.

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Thanks for your 2 cents!!

The Dingo's Bookshelf reserved for his favorites

  • The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series
  • The Twilight series
  • The Harry Potter series
  • Fight Club
  • On the Road