Most books I read fall into two major categories. The first category is the “must reads” – the ones that I feel were totally worth my time, books I recommend enthusiastically and I know others will find them as brilliant as I did. The other category is the “others” – books I would not recommend for different reasons (for example, maybe the story did not impress me or the writing style was not engaging enough). As I’ve been sharing a lot about “must read” books in my previous blog posts, today I want to share with you some of my reads from the latter category *.
§ Desire for chocolate by Care Santos
The central element of this book is a porcelain chocolate pot, whose story extends on a three centuries period. The same pot is owned by three ladies, each one having a special connection to chocolate (for example, one of them is the wife of a famous chocolate manufacturer).
Even though I found interesting the idea of building up the story around a symbolic element, in this case, the chocolate pot, the story was too linear for my taste. It could be a good book to read at the beach, when you’re too lazy to think too much and you just want to read something light and chocolatey 🙂
§ The Bad Girl by Mario Vargas Llosa
This book tells the story of the very long obsession of the narrator with his first love – of course, the bad girl. The action takes place in multiple episodes, spread over decades, when the two people unexpectedly meet in different parts of the world (just as if she was somehow following him) …
Reading this book was like reading the same thing over and over again. Each meeting between the two protagonists was following the same pattern. For me, it was too plain and it lacked any emotional depth, not to say it was way too predictable.
§ Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The “Scarlet Letter” is a classic fiction novel of Hawthorne. It tells the story of a woman who was found guilty of adultery and was punished to wear a scarlet letter A (A from adulteress) on her dress. That’s all I know, as I did not manage to finish the book.
I think my main issue with this book was regarding the writing style. Even though I considered it had an interesting theme, after reading less than half of it I decided to put it aside. I am not sure whether I would give it a try in the future …
§ Snow by Orhan Pamuk
I let this book last because I feel I have more things to say about it. To begin with, I bought it from a local store in Turkey, during my summer holiday. Since I was in Turkey, I thought it would be a nice idea to read something written by a famous Turkish writer.
The story is seen through the eyes of Ka, a poet who returns to Turkey after 12 years to investigate a wave of suicides. He comes to the isolated city of Kars in a period where there’s heavy snow (kar in Turkish), and it seems that all events are somehow influenced by it. The book touches on many subjects, such as the headscarf controversy, poverty, and the conflict between the secular state and the Islamic government.
Despite these interesting themes, I found myself slogging through the book. The action happened very slowly, just as everything is going slower when a city is covered with snow. In addition, Turkish political events were an important part of the book, and it was difficult for me to follow since politics is not my cup of tea. Also maybe the circumstances of reading the book were not the most appropriate ones: perhaps reading about bitter events happening in a snowy city while I was taking sunbaths and enjoying my summer holiday was not the best combination. Still, I think that even if I had read it in a more appropriate environment, it would have still not been an exciting read for me.
That was it from my side. Now I want to hear your opinions! Have you read any of these books? If yes, what do you think of them – did you enjoy reading them or not?
‘Till next time, happy reading!
Georgiana
*Disclaimer: I am sharing my personal, honest and 100% subjective opinion on these books. Maybe these books were in the “must read” category for other people, but they did not impress me for reasons that I mention in this blog post.
PS: I added the exact book covers of the books I read so that you can get a better grip on my context
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