September Reading Ladder
In order from least to most recent:
- Milk and Honey – Rupi Kaur (205 pages)
- And the Mountains Echoed – Khaled Hosseini (404 pages)
Total Amount of Pages Read: 609 pages, approx. 122 pages per week, approx. 17 pages per day
Grade twelve has been rather overwhelming, and because of that, I haven’t been able to get that much reading done. However, I hope to read more books next month, as I’m finally adjusting to the homework load that we’re given this year. Next month, I want to All the Light We Cannot See and Sense and Sensibility, and whatever else I find that appeals to me.
My thoughts
Milk and Honey – I had heard people raving about how good this was, and in all honesty I was a little let down by it. I’m not completely discrediting Kaur as a writer, I think she has some good thoughts in her works, however, I often found that I was left a little unsatisfied with some of her poems. Sometimes her “poetry” was really just one line, and call me cynical or uptight, but I felt that some her writing needed expansion, or just simply shouldn’t have been considered poetry at all.
Overall – 3/5
And the Mountains Echoed – Gosh, I sure love how Khaled Hosseini breaks my heart with every book he writes. He’s an absolute genius.
Overall – 5/5
October Reading Ladder:
In order from most to least recent:
- Catalyst – Laurie Halse Anderson (190 pages so far)
- The Girl on the Train – Paula Hawkins (131 pages so far)
321 pages total, 11 pages a day (yikes).
I know I said I would try and make more time to read, but as time goes on, the work in grade twelve has been gradually getting more and more intense, and I’ve been struggling to balance everything. As a result, I’ve really fallen behind on my reading. Though I said this last month, I’d still like to try and read Sense and Sensibility and All the Light we Cannot See, and hopefully get around to reading them, along with finishing The Girl on the Train and Catalyst.
My thoughts (insofar)
Catalyst – Laurie Halse Anderson
I’m a huge fan of Speak, by Anderson, however, I feel a little let down by this one. It doesn’t seem to hold the same raw realism as Speak. Something about the tone feels very, very forced, as if Anderson is trying her hardest to sound like a stressed teenager. While I do find portions of this book relatable, as a stressed out high school senior myself, parts of it just feel as if Anderson is trying much too hard to be hip-with-the-kids. What I do appreciate about it though, is the way that Anderson handles the relationships between the characters. In Speak, we really only got to see how she portrayed feelings of loneliness and isolation (which she did brilliantly, might I say), but in Catalyst, we got to see more of how she wrote interactions between characters, and I have to say that I’m impressed at how she can write both loneliness and close human relations in a realistic way.
Overall – 3/5
The Girl on the Train – Paula Hawkins
Wow, I’ve heard so much raving about this book but never actually got my hands on a copy long after the hype died down. Nevertheless, I’m actually very impressed with this book. As a frequent transit user who often passes by houses and other buildings, getting a glimpse into other people’s lives, I find this book to be very interesting. It’s a very intriguing read that always keeps the reader guessing. What I really like about this book is how brutally honest it is about the lives of alcoholics, a lot of the time alcoholism is often portrayed as something beautiful and tragic, but in this novel the author doesn’t sugar coat anything about it. Due to the brutal honesty of the author’s tone, there are certain portions of the book that I find to be a little too graphic for my preference, but this is really more of a personal preference, and something that I don’t think would detract from everyone’s reading experience.
Overall – 4/5
November Reading Ladder:
In order from most to least recent:
- Catalyst – Laurie Halse Anderson (42 pages)
- The Girl on the Train – Paula Hawkins (132 pages)
- Hamlet – William Shakespeare (289 pages)
463 pages, 15 pages a day
While my reading rate has gone up from last month, I still don’t quite find it satisfactory, as I would have liked to read more books. Once again, school took priority over keeping up my reading rate, and I was unsuccessful in reading all of the books that I wanted to. Next month–though I have consistently been saying it for several months–I’d like to read Sense and Sensibility and All the Light We Cannot See before I’m bombarded with more Chapters gift cards at Christmas.
Catalyst – Laurie Halse Anderson
Like I said in my review last month, I felt rather let down by this novel, as I loved the raw realism of Speak, but the tone of this book felt rather forced and dull in comparison to Speak. It felt like Anderson was trying to pull of a ‘relatable’ and ‘hip-with-the-kids’ kind of tone by frequently making pop culture references and using outdated slang from the 90s and early 2000s. Though I did appreciate how she commented on the strain that applying to university and trying to become an adult has on high school seniors, as it is an issue that is often swept under the rug in a lot of high school centred media. In all honesty though, I was rather disappointed with this book, and I wish that Anderson wrote in a more neutral tone rather than trying to be ‘relatable’ to a teenage audience.
Overall – 2/5
The Girl on the Train – Paula Hawkins
My opinion on this book hasn’t wavered much since I finished it, it’s brutally honest in depicting the life of alcoholics, and keeps the reader engaged with its suspenseful content. Though mystery novels usually aren’t my style, I can wholly say that I enjoyed the novel in its entirety.
Overall – 4/5
Hamlet – William Shakespeare
I’ve read this play before, and had to re read it as a result of studying it in class. Shakespeare’s language can be confusing, and I’m not the biggest fan of the protagonist’s personality, but it is an interesting read, as there is a lot of moral questioning and ambiguity, and I’m personally a huge fan of those sorts of themes.
Overall – 3/5
December Reading Ladder:
In order from most to least recent:
- The Blood of Olympus – Rick Riordan (516 pages)
- The House of Hades – Rick Riordan (597 pages)
- The Catcher in the Rye (re-read) – JD Salinger (214 pages)
- Death of a Salesman – Arthur Miller (144 pages)
1471 pages, 47 pages a day
While I did successfully increase my page count, I only managed to do that through reading candy books and re-reading a book that I’m incredibly familiar with. The only new book that I managed to read was Death of the Salesman. At this point, I feel that it’s unlikely that I’ll ever get around to reading the books that I want to read, since grade twelve has been one of the most overwhelming years of my life–especially this semester.
My Thoughts:
The Blood of Olympus & The House of Hades – Rick Riordan
Since these two books are from the same series, I’ll just rate them as one book since I have a fairly similar opinion of both. Now I have a deep emotional attachment to Rick Riordan’s books, and I was feeling nostalgic over the Christmas break, so I decided to re-read two of his books. They’re childish and admittedly quite corny at some parts, and certain portions of the book sound like the author is trying too hard to be ‘hip-with-the-kids’ by making pop culture references. Whenever this happened, I was drawn out of the story, and I felt that it almost broke the tone of the book. That aside, when the author wasn’t trying too hard to be relatable, he did a very good job at telling the story in a fast paced and engaging way.
Overall – 3/5
Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
Since we were studying American novels in English, I felt compelled to brush up on the book for the sake of Socratic discussion. The more I read this book, the more I find that I relate to the main character, since like Holden himself, I am an angsty seventeen year old who doesn’t exactly know what they’re doing with their life.
Overall – 5/5
Death of a Salesman – Arthur Miller
Since grade nine, I’ve been reading about how the American Dream is dead, and quite frankly, I’m a little sick of it. While the rest of my English class seemed to really love this book, I found myself a little confused and thrown off by the continuity of the play, since the book frequently switches back between present time and flashbacks.
Overall – 2/5