14. Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin

And on the other end of the literary spectrum, we have this piece of "chick lit" that turned into a bad movie with Kate Hudson, Ginnifer Goodwin and John Krasinski (Disclaimer: I haven't seen it, but it has a 15% on Rotten Tomatoes. We'll just leave it at that).

Anyway, so in this book the main character Rachel is super type-A and never takes chances or does bad things. This is emphasized repeatedly. On her 30th birthday, she sleeps with her best friend Darcy's fiance Dex, who she, Rachel, had met in law school. It turns into an affair, etc. etc.

There are quite a few things about this book that make it a bit implausible. First, Darcy is literally the worst human ever. Her best qualities include being pretty and telling stories that revolve around herself but amuse others. Rachel is only best friends with her because they've known each other since they were little, which is understandable, but it's never clear why Dex dates her, let alone thinks he ought to marry her. It makes the moral decision of the main characters too easy. If Darcy had even a single redeeming bone in her body, what they were doing would be more ambiguous and more interesting, but she's the worst. Griffin tries to make it seem like a tough decision, but it's really not.

The other highly implausible character is Rachel. She's supposed to be this super-smart, rich lawyer and a big law firm, but she never stands up for herself. I mean, I guess that's the point -- at the story's climax she tells Dex she has to pick and leaves him. But even then, it just seems unrealistic that someone so smart can be so dumb.

Anyway, I liked this book. I needed to know what happened, so I read it in a day (#nerdalert). Rachel talks a lot about her fear of being alone, a subject that hasn't been exactly ignored by popular media, but it was done in a refreshing way. Maybe that's why the book was so popular when it came out. Or maybe that's because it's kind of the ultimate awkward girl fantasy -- steal the hot guy who loves you for your brains, have a hot relationship, he leaves his hot fiance for you.

Or maybe we just like getting wrapped up in a world where dramatic, "true" (whatever that means) love happens somewhere between a law school library and your thirtieth birthday.

EDIT: I wanted to mention that Dex went to Georgetown. :)

13. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

This wasn't exactly the right book to start my speed-reading binge on, since, with 500 pages, it took all week. I honestly wasn't sure I liked it until I'd read almost 100 pages.

Here's the thing -- I had literally no idea what I was getting myself into. The back cover gives literally zero information about the plot. The novel tells six unrelated but inextricably linked stories, ranging from the early 20th century to a least a few hundred years from the present.

There's Adam Ewing, an American in the Pacific, fueled by imperialism and racial theories. There's Robert Frobisher (my favorite), the English composer with few morals or concerns. There's Luisa Rey, the journalist who finds the story of the century in an elevator, Timothy Cavendish, a book publisher with some strange luck and Sonmi-89, a clone struggling with the human condition. Last is Zachry, in the most brilliantly confusing story I've ever read. But Mitchell doesn't tell the six stories in order -- he starts each one, and then stops halfway through until he reaches Zachry's, which he tells in full. Then he picks up each story in reverse chronology, ending with Adam Ewing, the first.

In the book Mitchell says this structure might be "gimmicky," but it works wonderfully. As Ewing looks forward to the future at the end, full of hope and conviction, his words are tinged with the sadness of knowledge -- the rest of the book told us the future, and it sucks.

Yet, writing those words reminds me of a conversation in the first half of Luisa's story, where she discusses with a little boy the nature of knowing the future. They wonder if knowing the future necessarily changes it. Viewing the book in light of that conversation, maybe it's a little less sad.


I like quotes, so here's one from Cloud Atlas: “My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops?” 

Preach.

Apparently the movie is coming out in December. That will be ... interesting. Lots of great actors are in it though, so I guess we'll see.

Also, gimme your book suggestions. Please and thank you.

12. Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer

Since finals are finally finis (get it? I crack myself up), I can rededicate myself to this reading endeavor. My other New Years Resolutions were quickly forgotten, as they usually are, but this one I refuse to give up on.

Jonathan Safran Foer, husband of my favorite author Nicole Krauss, is known primarily for his fiction, but in this book he discusses the ethical implications of feeding his son meat.

In the book, he writes about how when people found out he was writing a book about eating animals they assumed he was writing a defense of vegetarianism. The same thing happened to me – everyone assumed that any book about eating animals could not come down in the practice's favor. I agree with him that this speaks volumes about the way we relate to omnivorism. People don't expect to hear good things about it, and Foer's book brings little good news.

I really enjoyed this book. Foer's skills as a novelist serve him well. He frames the story within his own life – his own memories of holidays and family dinners, his own concerns for his son. This keeps the book from getting too preachy.

But in the end, the picture is grim. Factory farming sucks guys. I'm not sure how you can read this book and still eat meat. Foer provides plenty of selfish and selfless reasons to stop: Surely one will hit you.

Read this book if you want to be challenged. Sorry, I feel like this is all coming off as slightly pretentious, but this is one of those books I want everyone to read so no one can plead ignorance. It's too important.