The Good and the Bad (and the Very, Very Ugly) Books of 2012

The Great

"Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail" by Cheryl Strayed

Synopsis:  Twenty-two year old Cheryl Strayed is left reeling after the death of her beloved mother from lung cancer.  Four years later, as her grieving family drifts apart, her marriage collapses, and her life begins to spin out of control, Cheryl decides to hike the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State, an eleven-hundred-mile trek, and to do it alone.  With no backpacking experience, Cheryl faces many obstacles, from searing heat and then record snowfall, to rattlesnakes and bears, on her journey toward piecing her life back together. 

Review:  I loved this book.  Even though its premise seems to be a bit cliche (broken-hearted woman sets out an adventure to find herself), it strikes a chord all its own.  Cheryl writes with a real honesty, looking back on her twenty-six year old self with candor.  She struggles with the weight of her pack (which she gives the moniker "Monster") as often as she struggles with the weight of her grief.  I found myself feeling very sympathetic (if not exactly empathetic) toward Cheryl as she set out on her long and lonely journey toward happiness.  

Spoilers:  One of the things I liked best about this book was Cheryl's ambiguous character.  Her tales of promiscuity and drugs don't make her lovable and she seems to be almost solely responsible for the demise of her marriage to a good man.  She is nuts for heading out into the wilderness with no backpacking experience and a very half-assed plan (no, a trip to REI is not adequate preparation).  It's a dangerous plan and pretty poorly executed.  On the other hand, her pain at the loss of her mother is tangible and her downward spiral is probably not all that uncommon after such a terrible heartbreak.  She is selfish to just pack up and leave her life behind, but who wouldn't want to escape a life that seemed to be coming undone?   I, for one, loved Cheryl and was glad to tag along on her life-changing adventure with her monstrously heavy pack and too tight shoes.   

The Just Plain Ugly

"The Casual Vacancy" by J.K. Rowling

Synopsis:  Barry Fairbrother dies in a seemingly quaint English town called Pagford, leaving his neighbors scrambling for the parish council seat he leaves vacant.  The council will soon vote on whether to keep "The Fields" (the slums of Pagford, if you will) or hand it off to the neighboring town of Yarvil which would mean the certain demise of the town's methadone clinic.  With the current council in a deadlock, Barry Fairbrother's successor will decide the fate of the clinic.
Review:  I wanted to love this book.  I tried, I really tried.  At one point, I just wanted to like this book.  Then I just wanted to make it through this book.  Then I just wanted to be finished reading this book and move on with my life.

   J.K. Rowling has very successfully distanced herself from her magical Harry Potter series for children and adults alike.  Her language is as crass here as her characters are foul.  The topics are undoubtedly adult and range from domestic abuse, teenage promiscuity, suicide, self-mutilation, drug use, to rape, and much, much (much) more.  The plot is minimal and most of the book's 500+ pages are devoted to revealing the backstories of the many loathsome characters, whose lives often intersect.  I struggled to keep each character (and his or her many faults and demons) straight.  Each of the 20+ characters is flawed, but not in a way that makes them seem real or relatable in any fashion and I felt a great distance from their insipid lives. 

   It isn't as if I mind dark stories, but I felt like this book just wallowed in its characters' horrendous lives (which, for the most part, it seemed as if they created and, thus, duly deserved).  Despite reading many positive reviews, I can not see what made this book worth reading.  Avoid it! 

Spoilers:  While I could not have cared less about the characters, I was still fairly disgusted that Rowling chose to kill off the youngest and most innocent.  Reading about little Robbie living in squalor was hard enough, but his drowning felt very sensationalistic to me at the end, like Rowling was trying to get a rise out of her audience.  I suppose that death was better for he and Krystal than the life they were meant to live, but I couldn't help but roll my eyes a bit at the conclusion.  I did get a bit of a laugh at the "Ghost of Barry Fairbrother" schtick, but ultimately found the rest of the book intolerable.