All the Ugly and Beautiful Things by Bryn Greenwood

Book #4.

I am a big fan of relationships between unlikely people and this book captured my attention from the beginning and saw me through to the very last page.

Wavonna “Wavy” Quinn is the daughter of a meth dealer and she knows that she shouldn’t trust anybody even her parents. She is selectively mute and acts as a parent to her younger brother, Donal, even at a very young age. She struggles but she is very responsible. Several times while reading, my heart ached for Wavy and her brother for they never had the chance of a normal childhood. And then came Kellen. And everything changed from there.

I personally think that the book is beautifully written. The alternating viewpoints is one of the things I like most about this read for it seems to be so effortless for Ms. Greenwood because it did not, in any way, disrupt the flow of the story. It’s also for this reason that I’m looking forward to more of her works.

On the other hand, I am not sure I can recommend this book to everyone even though it’s beautifully-written. Several themes here would require a mature mind I guess to appreciate the book as a whole. However, it will make you pause and reconsider and somehow for me, I was left asking when is love appropriate then? And how?

Quotable Quotes :

“Feeling dead was better than when my heart hurt. Sometimes I thought it might burn through my ribs while I was asleep, and smolder in the sheets until the whole house caught fire.”

“Sometimes waiting and being disappointed was good, to remind me he didn’t belong to me. Nothing belonged to me.”

“He squeezed me tight, almost as tight as I needed… Tight enough to tell me I was important to him. A little tighter and I would know I was more important than anything else. That was what I wanted.”

“I liked learning things. How numbers worked together to explain the stars. How molecules made the world. All the ugly and wonderful things people had done in the last two thousand years.”

Rating : 5/5 stars

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And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer by Fredrik Backman

Book #3.

This is a beautifully written novella about a man’s love for his wife, his son and his grandson. He is slowly losing his memory while loving the things he’s losing. A very short read that will make you sit back and appreciate life more.

Fredrik Backman had me in tears while reading this and he’s definitely one of my favorite authors now even though I’ve only read A Man Called Ove and this.

I absolutely recommend this to everyone because it’s a gem that will truly touch your heart. It will take very little of your time but a time well spent.

Quotable Quotes :

“That’s one good thing about forgetting things. You forget the things that hurt, too.”

“You never became ordinary to me, my love. You were electric shocks and fire.”

“I didn’t care why you said yes. Just that you stayed.”

“Humans are a strange breed in the way our fear of getting old seems to be even greater than our fear of dying.”

“You were never easy, darling difficult sulky you, never diplomatic. You might even have been easy to dislike at times. But no one, absolutely no one, would dare tell me you were hard to love.”

Rating : 5/5 stars

Quote of the Week

Everyone has gone through something that has changed them in a way that they could never go back to the person they once were.

-Unknown

The Stranger by Albert Camus

Book #2. 

Narrated by a Mr. Meursault, whose mother just died and who was later put on trial because of killing an Arab man, then soon sentenced to be executed. While the people who knows him think that he’s innocent, he himself don’t feel guilty of the murder. However, he felt that he’s a threat to the society for being indifferent.

This is probably not the easiest kind of philosophy to swallow, however, I think it’s something you can read if you want something to stimulate your mind. It doesn’t matter if you’ll agree with the book or not in the end, but it is a challenging one.

Quotable Quotes :

“I may not have been sure about what really did interest me, but I was absolutely sure about what didn’t.”

“I had been right, I was still right, I was always right. I had lived my life one way and I could just as well have lived it another. I had done this and I hadn’t done that. I hadn’t done this thing but I had done another. And so?”

“I’ve never really had much of an imagination. But still I would try to picture the exact moment when the beating of my heart would no longer be going on inside my head.”

“Mother used to say that however miserable one is, there’s always something to be thankful for. And each morning, when the sky brightened and light began to flood my cell, I agreed with her.”

“After awhile you could get used to anything.”

Rating : 4/5 stars

Today

The view from the office around 9 AM.

Quote of the Week

Knowing is better than wondering, waking is better than sleeping, and even the biggest failure, even the worst, beats the hell out of never trying.

-Meredith Grey, Grey’s Anatomy

The Terrorist’s Son: A Story of Choice by Zak Ebrahim

Book #1.

Zak Ebrahim was only 7 when his father El Sayyid Nosair shot Rabbi Meir Kahane, the leader of the Jewish Defense League in November 1990. His father also helped to plan the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 while he was in prison. Zak, together with his family, spent years visiting his father in prison until his mom finally decided to stop all communications with him. They also changed their names and his mom remarried.

This is a very quick and interesting read. Very inspiring as well as he did not grow up hating. Wonderful!

Quotable Quotes :

“I’m convinced that empathy is more powerful than hate and that our lives should be dedicated to making it go viral.”

“Everyone has a choice. Even if you’re trained to hate, you can choose tolerance. You can choose empathy.”

“Even people who’ve been raised on hate since birth, people whose minds have been warped and weaponized, can make a choice about who they want to be… People who have been victimized can understand more deeply than anyone how little the world needs more victims.”

Rating : 4/5 stars

My Year in Books

You can check the whole thing here.

Quote of the Week

If you lose someone but find yourself, you won.

Happy New Year!

Happy new year, homo sapiens! May this year be a more blessed year for all of us!