The 305 Greatest Books - #196: Naughts & Crosses by Malorie Blackman

The next up on my reading of the 305 greatest books is Naughts & Crosses by Malorie Blackman. The book can be found on the BBC and My Book Lists.

This was an interesting read. It is one of the few YA (Young Adult) books on my list and being released in 2001, it is one of the most recent books to be on any of the lists (since I compiled my lists in ~2005). And being on the BBC's The Big Read, which was a search in April of 2003 for the "nation's best-loved novel", it likely made the list because it is a well written story that was prominent at the time. That doesn't mean it wasn't good though, and that it told a remarkable story. The premise of the story is a "what-if" universe where the races between white and Black people where flip-flopped in society. Where white skinned people are the fairly recently unslaved people and black skinned people are the ruling class of society. In this society the Black members are the Crosses, in references to Christianity, and the white members are Naughts, i.e. zeroes or o's, like a tic-tac-toe board. And while it felt like Blackman just flip-flopped the stereotypes of each society at first, the story takes on some interesting and well thought out "what-if" scenarios. Despite being what could be considered a Romeo and Juliet-esk story set within this universe and a YA novel on top of that, there were far more instances of outright suicide than I was anticipating, including teen suicide. There were also instances of terrorization, bombings, and just plain ole murder. It was an intense book. Overall the book is a fast read and it is the first book in a long time for me that had me coming back for more, reading more than my allotted amount each night because I had to find out what happened next. I loved it and I'm curious to see where the story goes from here (because there are several more in the series, although this book wraps up nicely at the end). I'm adding it to my recommended book list. 

The 305 Greatest Books - #195: Old Goriot by Honoré de Balzac

The next up on my reading of the 305 greatest books is Old Goriot by Honoré de Balzac. The book can be found on the Norwegian Book List.

When I first started to look for my next book to read, I had several of the Everyman bindings ready at my disposal. So I researched a bunch of them and Old Goriot was one of the shorter ones, so I picked it for this month. Mainly the comments I had seen online were that Balzac had a way with scene descriptions. He would often go for pages describing one particular aspect of a scene. And I had found that, for the most part, that was true. The beginning of this book is an ad nauseam set up for the building in which Goriot lived. And while it took me a little bit to get into this style of writing, eventually it won me over. I still needed to take it slow through the book though. I only ended up being able to handle about 10 pages a day, because it took some concentration to absorb the story; a story that is a little bit all over the place. At one point a major character turns out to be criminal living under an assumed name. Why was this in the story? I don't know. Did it have major implications for the story. Kind of, but not really. The ending also left me pretty sour on the whole thing. It made it feel that several of the threads in the story were not only loose, but just left dangling because they were unimportant. Generally though, the story focuses on Goriot and his two adult daughters, whom he basically purchased into well placed marriages at the expense of his own well being, putting himself into poverty. Were the daughters thankful? Maybe? I'm still not certain their true feelings, however the book does paint them generally into a bad light. By the end of the book, everything is depressing and I don't really like any of the characters. Our main character, Eugène being the exception. His character went from one who I could have accepted if he got run over by a train to being the only redeemable character by the end. And even his last act throws all that out the window. So, overall, I'm lukewarm to meh on it as a whole. It is likely on the list for the use of descriptions and not likely for the riveting plot.