Book 3 - Lord of the Flies

Book 3 of my literary adventure is Lord of the Flies, by William Golding. I remembered that I had read this book in high school, and from what I could remember I really hadn't liked it. Nonetheless, I still wanted to reread it to see if my feelings regarding this novel would change. Upon my second time reading it, I realized that most people have probably read it during their high school years since it seems to be a classic.

Lord of the Flies is a story about a group of young British boys that find themselves stranded on a desert island after a plane crash. They are left to fend for themselves until a possible rescue comes. As one young boy named Ralph is voted Chief, a plethora of feelings arise out of the group of boys: jealousy, anger, hope, savagery, freedom, despair and vengeance, in no particular order. The human nature is the topic of interest in this book since it is constantly at the forefront of all occurring events. Albeit I found the novel as a whole to be readable and quite enjoyable at times, for some inexplicable reason I did not really like it. I don't know why exactly, but there's something missing. Maybe I'll find out what that is sooner of later. Perhaps the general weirdness of the story made me doubt its credibility...

My Rating: Terrible < Poor < Acceptable < Good < Very Good < Excellent

Book 2 - The Killer Inside Me

The second book I read from the long list of possibilities is The Killer Inside Me, by Jim Thompson. I knew after the first 5 pages that I would enjoy this one considerably more than "The Scarlet Letter", and I guessed that this was my type of book: a detective story focusing on amain character. Upon its completion, I realized that this novel was rather more psychological and noir.

The story is set in Texas and focuses on deputy sheriff Lou Ford, who, as we can guess from the start, has some "issues". I found the title of the book to be a bit self-revealing, but that must have been done purposely to lead us into trying to comprehend the protagonist's story. Albeit I liked the book in general, I thought it was slightly disturbing at times, and I honestly did not fully comprehend the ending. From the author's explanation by black on white, we pretty much know how the ending played out, but I did not understand the purpose of it or why it had to end the way it ended. Just like a good movie with a bad ending, a good novel with a flat ending (well, from my point of view) leaves me with a bitter taste that the ending was not as good as the rest of the movie. Oh well, I still enjoyed it.

My Rating: Terrible < Poor < Acceptable < Good < Very Good < Excellent

Book 1 - The Scarlet Letter

It took me a bit more than two weeks, but I finally finished reading The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne. I had previously heard of this book numerous times, and as such I was a bit disappointed by this novel of the 1800's. First of all, although I read a lot I am not used to the Old English style of writing composing this book. In the first hundred pages I was completely taken aback by the "thee", "dost", "spake", and so forth, that I had never read.

However, once the actual story began, I started to find it more interesting and got better acquainted with the above-mentioned style of writing. Story of sin, love, life, religion and shame, The Scarlet Letter depicts the story of protagonist Hester Prynne, whose great sin has condemned her to a life of shame. Although the essence of the story was good, I often found myself lost in the paragraph-long sentences. Not uncommonly, the sentences were so long that once the end was reached, I could not remember what I had read at the beginning of it. Apart from the lengthy sentences and the unaccostumed Old English style of writing, I found this book to be readable and at times enjoyable, but I would certainly not read it once more.

My Rating: Terrible < Poor < Acceptable < Good < Very Good < Excellent