Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Unbroken, Making Toast, and Divergent

I finally got some non-fiction in my diet! I recently read Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand. This was an absolutely amazing survival story. My dad, who is a Vietnam vet, read this book and suggested it to me. I just can't imagine enduring the struggle that POW's go through and have no way of measuring the amount of respect I have for them.

I honestly picked my next selection because it was a thin book. I had about 40 pages left in Unbroken and didn't want to carry two heavy books to work with me so I picked up Making Toast by Roger Rosenblatt. Despite my lousy criteria for taking it off my shelf, I thought this was an excellent book. A true story about a man and his family coping with the loss of his adult daughter. It wasn't overly sentimental or syrupy but was simple and true.

Lest you think I've been too ambitious in my streak of non-fiction, I also read Divergent by Veronica Roth. Somehow, I ended up with a bad printing and all of page 16 was black. I thought it might be a plot device for a while until the story kept referencing back to events on that page. I was able to get a hold of someone from the publisher and they said they'd send me a new copy. It's so odd to me that dystopian novels are so popular, but when you take into account the Occupy movement and the resulting dialogue, it makes sense. I liked Divergent. I suspect it will be the popular series to follow up on The Hunger Games. Book two comes out in May and I look forward to reading that one.

I'm currently reading The Orphanmaster by Jean Zimmerman. I had a bit of trouble getting started with it but I think it's going to get better.