Category: Book Reviews

If Freedom hadn’t been the next book available from the library after Blood Meridian, I may not have finished it, because it was not enjoyable and it consistently made me feel sad or icky or both. But, it was infinitely easier to read than Blood Meridian, and I would hate to quit on two books… Read more

I really tried to give Blood Meridian a good chance. Taking a very basic and general view, it seemed like the type of novel that I would like: set in the mid 1800s and involving journeying out West on horseback. Unfortunately, I could not bring myself to endure more than a few chapters, as it… Read more

This is another truly terrible book. There is really nothing to commend about it, and I simply do not understand why this would make the list for top contenders of the Great American Novel. It’s written poorly, and in an uninteresting way, as it purports to be the diary of the most horrendously selfish, shallow,… Read more

This was an entertaining book with plenty of interesting-enough characters, some moving parts, and drama. However, as far as a contender for the Great American Novel goes, I don’t think this should be up there on the list, mostly because I think the American Dream should be portrayed in a more favorable light. Poor James… Read more

Wow. This was the least-enjoyable book I’ve read in a long while. It reads like a horror-dystopian film with a green-black tint over every scene, and characters with hideous stage makeup that creates the fantastical and nightmarish aesthetic. I only like horror novels with a redeeming lead character, which McTeague lacked. Speaking broadly, it seems… Read more

The Red Badge of Courage started very poorly and got a little better over time, but not much. When I write reviews, especially less-than-favorable ones, my tendency is to qualify everything with statements such as “my opinion” and “I think.” Now, surely that’s obvious, that this is my opinion and what I think and I… Read more

I must confess that it has been years since I’ve read Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and I did not re-read it for this week’s blog because I didn’t enjoy it the last time. I really want to like this book, and Mark Twain, but I only believe one of his books is a masterpiece, and… Read more

Moby Dick would be truly great—in my humble opinion—if an editor could divide the book into Moby Dick and Addendum Encyclopedic Account of Whaling in the Mid-Nineteenth Century. Though Ishmael takes careful pains to educate his readers on all there is to know about whaling et al, I’d say it’s quite unnecessary for a casual… Read more

The Scarlet Letter was originally published in 1850, but it reads much older, perhaps intentionally, as a historical fiction set in the mid 17th century. As such, it is not today what I would consider an example of engaging writing—Nathaniel Hawthorne passes years with a few rambling sentences until he happens upon a plot-promoting point… Read more