So with all of the wintry weather of this season, I’ve been doing a lot of reading. Here are a few of my recent reads.
Where’d You Go Bernadette? – I thought Where’d You Go Bernadette? would be one of those books I started and never got around to finishing before the library return date, but I actually enjoyed it. This book revolves around Bernadette, a Seattle stay-at-home mom and former promising architect and her daughter Bee. After some strange and extenuating circumstances, Bernadette goes missing and Bee is left to piece together what happened to her mother. The story is told through emails, letters, FBI documents, articles, among other items but everything manages to fit together in a mostly linear way despite this. Where’d You Go Berndette? is a great vacation read or if your next vacation is a ways off, a great read for a weekend indoors.
The Circle – To sum this book up in a nutshell, I would say it’s a 1984 for the digital age. But I’m not sure it will stand the test of time like 1984 has. The Circle read a bit like a parable to me in that you knew there were lessons to learn (or rather cautionary tales) in the actions of the characters. The story starts with Mae Holland 20-something woman who gets a coveted with the help of a college friend job at The Circle. The Circle is a company which will remind you of Google with a dash of Facebook and Twitter with its sprawling gorgeous campus in Silicon Valley and its strong tech-driven organization culture. Everything starts off great, but the company demands complete transparency and has adopted the slogan that “privacy is theft” which quickly becomes apparent through its social media, digital products, and company culture. I won’t give too much of the plot away to you, but The Circle seeks to integrate its platform into all facets of life from politics, to banking, to socializing, to security, and everything in between. You’ll have to read the book yourself to see how Mae and the other characters react to the expanding each of The Circle.
And the Mountains Echoed – And the Mountains Echoed is a layered story that follows two siblings and several other characters who are connected in various ways across decades and countries. Because of the scope of the book and the way the individual stories of the characters came together gradually, it took me until about half way into the book to really get into the rhythm. But the second half the book grabbed my attention. The novel deals with issues such as love, family, sacrifice, betrayal, expatriate life experiences in America, the lingering impact of war on Afghanistan. I have to honestly say I liked the author’s previous books a bit better (The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns), but And the Mountains Echoed is definitely worth the read.
What have you read lately? What’s on your to-read list?
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