Response to review of Glass Castle

This week I read a review of The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/13/books/review/013COVERPROSE.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1. I thought that Prose wrote an okay interview. However, I didn't like a few things in her review. One, I didn't think that Prose focused enough on the love that the family has for each other. Even though she picked out one of my favorite scenes that shows this, she paints their love as an illusion, which the bond between a family isn't. Also, she hardly ever points out a good part of the book, only bad parts where the Walls went wrong in their judgement. While the book is dominated by these, you still have to acknowledge the nice moments of happiness in the book. Finally, I think that Prose revealed too much of the book in her review. Instead of being a review of what made the book a good read, it seemed like she was giving me a two page summary of the book's contents, and all the most important parts. I think it's better when a reviewer lets the reader discover a book for themselves, as this is definitely a book worth discovering.

Speaker for the Dead finish, and Divided Kingdom drop

This week I finished Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card, and dropped Divided Kingdom by Rupert Thompson. I didn't like Divided Kingdom because it was all technical, and political, and to intellectual for me to want to read. It is about a world where the government has divided the country into four parts, each depending on your personality. the main character is sanguine, or an optimist, which is "the best nature". The book details his change from boy taken from his parents, to government official, to objector. It had to do to much with politics, and i'm not very into that so i dropped the book. However, I liked Speaker for the Dead, and would give it a 10. It explores the questions of what would happen if we ever met aliens, and if aliens can be people too. I thought these were great questions, and I really felt for the characters the whole book. Also the aliens that Card created were very interesting and i enjoyed learning about them and trying to figure them out.