It's really hard to believe that I'm already almost halfway to my goal! In December I decided to set myself a goal of reading 100 books in the year 2011. This averages to just a little under 2 books per week, every week, for a year. There were many times in the early months that I thought is this possible? Am I going to fall ridiculously short? I don't mean to get cocky (after all, I'm not even halfway, let alone close to finishing)...but I'm doing better than I thought I would!
Btw, kudos to those fine ladies who are already wayyyy ahead of me in this area! You are an inspiration.
Book #48 for the year is quite popular lately, and I managed to snag it from Amazon.com for $2.99 during their Sunshine Sale. I believe the sale ends on June 16th, so if you haven't gotten to it yet, go snag yourself something good for your Kindle!
Lauren Myracle's Shine is set in Black Creek, North Carolina -- a backwoods, rural community near Asheville. A teenage boy is discovered brutally beaten at the local gas station where he works, with a gas nozzle rammed down his throat -- the victim of a hate crime. His former best friend, sixteen-year-old Cat, is determined to weed out the culprit who did this to her friend, especially since the authorities are doing next to nothing. Her odyssey takes her around and outside their little backwoods town, into a web of lies and drugs and whispers. Cat realizes that in order to find her best friend's assailant, she must confront her own demons -- and possible enlist them in the search.
I was surprised, at first, to discover that although this book is listed as "Young Adult", it deals with some very harsh and adult topics, such as sexual orientation, prejudice, hate crimes, drug use, and sexual abuse. The story takes place in an area I am not familiar with (although I have been to Asheville, NC, it is only used for one scene in the book) and in a culture that I am also ignorant of. Many of the townspeople in Black Creek, NC are ignorant of the gay culture, failing to understand that Patrick, Cat's friend, is not flawed or "deserving" of the abuse thrust upon him. They judge him for his sexual orientation, even if they admit that he was a great guy and a good person.
In Shine, the futures of most of the characters are bleak. Even Cat admits that she does not believe she will ever leave Black Creek, or the stereotypical backwoods people that inhabit it. The language is common and the accents stressed. Cat is the only young woman in the book with morals or standards -- the other girls depicted in Shine are common, ignorant, self-absorbed, and deceptive. The boys -- with the exception of one or two -- are no better. There are so many characters introduced early on that I wondered where they were all going and what they had to do with the story. But Myracle ties them all together beautifully (in the end, there was only one character who I felt was truly irrelevant to the plot).
The book is well-written and beautifully sad, in parts, and the uncomfortable feeling of entrapment and futility is woven through the book artfully. A good read, and perhaps a re-read in the future.
Rating: ****
I was surprised, at first, to discover that although this book is listed as "Young Adult", it deals with some very harsh and adult topics, such as sexual orientation, prejudice, hate crimes, drug use, and sexual abuse. The story takes place in an area I am not familiar with (although I have been to Asheville, NC, it is only used for one scene in the book) and in a culture that I am also ignorant of. Many of the townspeople in Black Creek, NC are ignorant of the gay culture, failing to understand that Patrick, Cat's friend, is not flawed or "deserving" of the abuse thrust upon him. They judge him for his sexual orientation, even if they admit that he was a great guy and a good person.
In Shine, the futures of most of the characters are bleak. Even Cat admits that she does not believe she will ever leave Black Creek, or the stereotypical backwoods people that inhabit it. The language is common and the accents stressed. Cat is the only young woman in the book with morals or standards -- the other girls depicted in Shine are common, ignorant, self-absorbed, and deceptive. The boys -- with the exception of one or two -- are no better. There are so many characters introduced early on that I wondered where they were all going and what they had to do with the story. But Myracle ties them all together beautifully (in the end, there was only one character who I felt was truly irrelevant to the plot).
The book is well-written and beautifully sad, in parts, and the uncomfortable feeling of entrapment and futility is woven through the book artfully. A good read, and perhaps a re-read in the future.
Rating: ****
Shine is gritty--sometimes raw and always intense. It drags prejudices and human frailty into the spotlight for close examination, dealing with subjects that aren't sunny, such as homophobia and drug use, poverty and isolation. It is not like anything Myracle has ever written before, but like her prior stories, it is well-crafted and entertaining. Shine belongs in the adult section. I think it is her best work.
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