For One More Day

My dad recommended this book to me because it was the first book he has read in a really long time. Normally his 'library'consists of quote books and magazine articles, so I was proud that he read this. I decided to take up his recommendation and also issued a bet. Judging by the weight and thickness of the book, I thought I could read it in under an hour. I was wrong, though. It took me almost exactly 2 hours to finish the 200 page book (including introduction).

I found the book to be touching, but I felt sort of unhappy rather than inspired. The book was written well; I just got that feeling from the storyline.

For One More Day is about a man. 'Chick' Benetto adopts a conversational storytelling tone with the reader in the beginning. The entire story is a series of flashbacks within a flashback. The reader learns about his childhood, his young adult life, and eventually his sad adulthood, where he became so depressed that he attempted suicide (not a spoiler, as it is mentioned at the very beginning of the book).

Most of his story revolves around his parents. His mother, mostly, but his father as well. He reflects on his mother and how he wishes he could have one more day with her. He realized after her death, 10 years before, that he really hadn't appreciated her. His father and mother split when he was young and he was always bitter at his mother for it, but then he realizes that what she tried to do was for the best. His father was the driving force behind Chick, because, as he observes, "Kids chase the love that eludes them, and for me, that was my father's love," (33). Even after his dad was mostly out of the picture, he still chased after what he couldn't attain. His dad's ambition for him was baseball. The only important thing was his son getting to the major leagues. It was more important than school, his friends, his mother, and any job he might hold.

Right after Chick's attempted suicide, he sees his mother. She is standing on the baseball field close to the water tower he jumped off of. Chick looked again and she was gone. He walked to their old house and surprisingly, found her there. She wasn't really a ghost, more like a solid thought. He hugged her and talked to her and she told him things about her life, taking care of him and then living on without him when he became "too busy" for her.

It really is a touching story. Near the end of his one more day with his mom, she was telling him that she loved him and would always be with him. It didn't sound cheesy in the book, it sounded heartfelt.

I enjoyed reading this. I wish that I could've felt more upbeat about it at the end, but the book is what the book is and I am happy to have read it.

Sins of the Flesh

A friend recommended this book to me when I mentioned other supernatural books I enjoyed. I thought this would be more of an action/lust novel, but it turned out to be a gruesome horror novel. Somehow, I think I became more freaked out by the book than I would a movie. I think it is because when I read a book, the pictures are inside my mind, not on a movie screen.

I am terrible at handling suspense and this book had tons of it. I couldn't stop reading until I was finished. I needed to know if the good guys triumphed and the bad guys died. I won't tell you who won and who died, but the master bad guy is mentioned in the epilogue, giving it a creepy, lingering finish.

Sins of the Flesh by Don Davis and Jay Davis is haunting. I think it is mostly so because it draws on local legends. It mentions a couple cities that anyone around the US has heard of, like Chicago and St. Louis, but it is mostly focused on a little farming community in the boot heel of Missouri, called Gideon. The authors incorporate flashback scenes to draw you into the complex plot even further, and construct a nearly real world around the reader with their detailed imagery. You can almost feel the stifling blackness of night in some of the scenes, and hear the screams of the victims of the wendigo.

The wendigo is the monster in this novel. It is a shape-shifting monster that starts out human, but then acquires a taste for human flesh and when the hunger strikes it, the body of the wendigo turns into a large, hairy, muscular beast that stands nearly 8 feet tall on his hind legs. His very long claws are silver in color and his mouth stretches to 2-3 times the size of a normal human's, with sharp, pointed teeth lining the inside. Not only can he shape shift between his original human shape and that of the beast, he can change into anything. In the book, he impersonates loved ones and victims of his other crimes to draw his new victims in. At the last second, when he has them in his grasp, he changes into the terrifying monster he is. Because it was created by evil magic, only magic can stop it. You will not find the typical witch on a broomstick in this novel, though. Greatness is thrust upon one of the younger characters and I think that makes the story all the more believable. The authors don't sensationalize the common concept of the supernatural, distorting it to a ridiculous proportion, and they keep in mind that the whole idea of a monster and magic are far-fetched, but they draw you right back in with that skepticism.

If you have a weak stomach, I do not recommend reading this. Almost every one of the horrifying deaths brought by the wendigo is described in sharp detail. This is a perfect story to read, if you are fond of suspense, when you are out camping or to retell when you are at home with friends late at night.

I, personally, am not a big fan of horror and suspense, but I will be the first to say that these authors did a fantastic job in writing this book.

The Favorites

I am going to start with the favorites of mine so I don't end up getting ahead of myself later.

I own somewhere in the vicinity of 200 books right now. My dream is to have my own personal library in my house, a room devoted to books.

Some of my favorite reads include:

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, The Return of Sherlock Holmes and The Hound of the Baskervilles, by Arthur Conan Doyle, all conveniently bundled together in an anthology I have.
The Harry Potter series, by J.K. Rowling
The Lord of the Rings series, by J. R. R. Tolkien
The Twilight series, by Stephenie Meyer
Bossypants, by Tina Fey
Heidi, by Johanna Spyri
The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold
The Giver, by Lois Lowry
Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson
Dracula, by Bram Stoker
The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak
The DaVinci Code, Angels and Demons, and The Lost Symbol, by Dan Brown
Black Beauty, by Anna Sewell
Memoirs of a Geisha, by Arthur Golden
Copper Sun, by Sharon Draper
Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini
Naked, Me Talk Pretty One Day, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, and When You Are Engulfed in Flames, by David Sedaris
Assassin, by Ted Bell
One Floew over the Cukoo's Nest, by Ken Kesey
A Million Little Pieces, by James Frey
Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen

These are some of the stories that have stuck in my mind the most. I have a few books in my collection that I haven't read yet, and I will get to them in time. I am a college student, taking some pretty reading-heavy courses, so I find myself with less time to read for pleasure than I'd like, but I still manage to get through a book every week or two. I used to be able to finish a 300 page book in one sitting, easily, but time constraints have stopped that for now.

This blog will detail my endeavors and opinions as I march into a sea of literature. I will post each time I finish a book (and maybe more than that) to explain my thoughts on that book. Yes, I will let some spoilers slip! I will warn you, though, before that happens.

Thank you.