Books I read this month: June 2013

To be honest, I struggled to get through anything this month. I was super-busy so I didn’t spend that much time reading. However I did finish these three:

Atonement, by Ian McEwan (paperback, 480 pages). This book was such a hot mess. The plot sounds really interesting, but the tone and tempo jerks around so much that the whole book feels disjointed into parts, as if a few different authors teamed up to write different sections of the same story. And the ending was just too sad, and really ruined it for me. I guess the moral of the story is supposed to be that we should always be careful of what we say and do, because we may never get a chance at atonement. All well and true, but not really beach reading. (2 out of 5 stars.)

Memoirs of a Geisha, by Arthur Golden (paperback, 499 pages). This was much better. You really get sucked into the story of Sayuri’s life. I think Golden did a good job of crafting the book as though the stories really were being told as a memoir to a biographer. I raced through this book as fast as I could. (5 out of 5 stars.)

Scarlett, by Alexandra Ripley (paperback, 896 pages). I love Scarlett O’Hara. She’s feisty and flawed and brash and she never, ever lets anything keep her down. I feel like Ripley did a good job of replicating Margaret Mitchell’s style and tone from Gone With the Wind. That said, let’s be adults and call a spade a spade–we KNOW how this story is going to end, more or less, so dragging it out over 900 pages seems a bit excessive, and the story did start to drag partway through, which is why I knocked off a star. (4 out of 5 stars)

What are you reading these days? Any recommendations? Tell me in the comments! (Don’t forget to hook up with me on Goodreads here!)