A Bit of Reading
This brings me to 12 books finished since February.
In Open Spaces - It was a good read despite reading this book right during Melissa's anniversary. Death and grief are big themes in the book, and I spent the majority of this read in tears.
Good Benito - The book explored the disconnect between being entrenched within your work and the everyday emotional and physical world. The scientists in this book, including the main character, are so focused on their studies that they remove themselves from family, friends, and other human interaction.
The main character, Bennet, regains some connection with his niece at the end, but by that time I really couldn't care - the ending felt more like the middle of a chapter. And there were a number of themes I wish the author had explored more, especially Bennet's relationship with his parents' maid, Florida.
The Road - I didn't even know this had been created into a movie until Steve mentioned something when I was halfway through it. I added it to my Netflix, will see what the movie is like.
I really enjoyed this book. The short sections served to give little glimpses at the character's lives as well as remove any sense of how much time has passed between each section - it could be minutes, days, months. The characters often don't know how much time has passed, no reason for the reader to know.
The story focuses on the character's love and care for each other in a horrific and cursed post-apocalyptic world. They tell each other and themselves that they are looking for the Good Guys and avoiding the Bad Guys while they are constantly moving, but they disagree on how to interact with people they pass who are obviously not Bad Guys. In a world where starvation and death is always within reach, how much can one reach out to help another? And how will they find the Good Guys when they don't trust anyone beside each other?
I wasn't trying to kill him, he said. But the boy didn't answer. They rolled themselves in the blankets and lay there in the dark. He thought he could hear the sea but perhaps it was just the wind. He could tell by his breathing that the boy was awake and after a while the boy said: But we did kill him.
