Books I’ve read in 2012 - Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
Gosh this book is strange. Like honestly. I think that is the best way I can describe it. I absolutely loved it, and I really got into it, but it’s weird as hell. The characters are all so messed up and absolutely batshit crazy. But it’s a fascinating, captivating read!
The ‘narrator’ of the story, Lockwood, becomes obsessed with knowing all he can about Heathcliffe, whom he is renting from, and with him, I as the reader became obsessed too.
The only real problem I had with Wuthering Heights was the way one of the characters, Joseph, speaks. Charlotte Brontë had a real problem with writing in French when her characters spoke French, and Emily Brontë has a similar problem with writing Joseph’s accent. It’s almost impossible to read, but I did slowly sort of get the hang of it by the end.
Books I’ve read in 2012 - The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
This book is just magnificent. It’s so beautiful and so sad and so happy and so terrible and it’s absolutely amazing. It made me laugh and it made me cry and I loved it so much. Everyone should read this book.
This is probably the most incredible book about death that I’ve ever read. It’s not just about death. It’s about life and secrets and pain and loss and love and happiness and change and destruction and it’s all written from a 14 year old girl’s perspective. It’s so simple and yet so complicated. And I absolutely loved it.
Books I’ve read in 2012 - The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling
I had been excited about this book ever since Rowling first announced she was writing it. When I heard what it was about - the death of a parish council member and its affect on the town - I thought it sounded a little dull. But The Casual Vacancy is far from dull. It’s definitely an adults book, full of sex and scandal and swearing and death and drugs and yes, even rape. I absolutely loved it.
I’ve seen an awful lot of people compare it to Harry Potter, saying it isn’t as good as Harry Potter, that they kept expecting some magic or something equally exciting. Don’t go in expecting it to be anything like Harry Potter. It’s not, and it doesn’t pretend to be, and anyone who was expecting something more like Harry Potter is kinda dumb, in my opinion, because it was never going to be like that, and Rowling never suggested it would be.
Honestly, if you can separate this book from Harry Potter (which, frankly, I think you should be able to considering that the only thing they have in common is the author, which isn’t saying much considering the variety of genre’s some authors tackle), then I suggest you give this a read.
