The Two Towers

Last night I started The Two Towers (finally)

So far I've read about 10 pages. What I was surprised by so far is the fact that the first half of the book is all about Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, Merry, and Pippin and what will happen to the five of them. The second half shows the journey of Frodo and Sam. I’m relieved at this because I was worried about keeping track of the events of 3 or more groups of characters at a time, but it looks like Tolkien has taken care of that worry for me. I was also worried about not remembering the events of the last book since I read it almost a year ago. However, I was surprised how quickly it came back to me. Even though I’ve been dreading this for a while, I’m excited to continue reading and find out what happens. Yay for finally being excited about LOTR (like a normal person, haha)!!

The Lovely Bones: CHECK!

I finished The Lovely Bones this morning. I thought it was pretty good: well written, interesting ideas, realistic (except for the bizzare happenings of the last 20 pages). I'm honestly a little surprised that so many people have read it. There were times where I thought the story was at a little bit of a stand still. At one point, I thought an elaborate plot was going to develop, especially when Lindsey sneaked into George Harvey's house and stole his drawing. Basically, I thought Lindsey and her dad would solve the mystery, but no such luck. Things just went on as usual.

Usually, I like books that go on and on without a whole lot of action or suspense. Remember, my two favorite books are Gone With The Wind and Anna Karenina. Therefore, this book of Suzie watching the earth from Heaven should be up there on my list because it was about a bunch of people dealing with a murder of a loved one. However, I was a little disappointed because my sister told me it was a "page turner." To me, this book wasn't a page turner. It was interesting, intriguing, thought provoking, and there were some exciting parts, but there was never a part that I couldn't put down. Maybe my idea of a page-turner has been tainted by The Hunger Games, which is the ultimate page turner. I'm not sure why, this book just wasn't as exciting as I thought it would be.

I'd have to say my favorite part was when the father was explaining to Buckley, who was 4 or 5 at the time, what happened to Suzie using monopoly pieces. He told him what pieces everyone used, and that Suzie was the shoe and that she was out of the game. And for a while this seemed to work, and Buckley put the shoe on his dresser until one day it disappeared.

My favorite character was Lindsey. I thought her reaction to the news was completely realistic in that she threw herself into exercise. She started with a fitness regime at home, then joined the boys soccer team. This exercise motif ended with the several mile run home in the rain after graduation. I'm not sure if this would have happened had Suzie not been murdered, and perhaps she would have been missing on that day had she not been able to run home.

The Suzie going into Ruth's body part was weird, and we'll just leave it at that.

I've been itching to finish Lord of the Rings, so I think the two towers will be my next book. Tata!