Cutting progress

Hey everyone, just wanted to get a sense how we were doing on 'Cutting for Stone?' I've just started part 2 ... it's too slow of a read for me. I'm not hating it, but I just find the detailed description of five million characters really tedious, and this far into the book, and I still have no idea what the story is about.

Anyway, just wanted to let you know that I prolly won't be done with it by the end of the month, but will continue reading to try to finish it. There better be a twist or something.

I've also heard of this series called 'A Game of Thrones' on which they have recently made an HBO series that is supposed to be fantastic. I'm going to read the sample of that, and if it looks good, we could possibly do that for our next book? Let me know if anyone has heard anything about it.

And yes, Vaish, we should discuss the Hunger Games on our blog.

H-Games

I suggest that once Charitha is done w/ the Hunger Games Trilogy, we blog about it too since most of us have just recently read it. I also personally can't get enough of talking about it so it would be fun to discuss random topics.

Alice I have read finale post ;)

So after much fanfare for my thoughts about the past books. Here it is:

I really enjoyed reading Alice I have Been. It was a fun read and the author kept you interested throughout. Granted, that the world at the time was all Victorian and about purity, which if you were to think about it, gives women even more to gossip about over tea.

I thought that Mr. Dodgson was a little dodgy, but at the same time men at the time were not to show their affection to their wives or their children in public, he was different. He also did not have a wife, so I believe that gave him a little more leeway with women in society. I want to believe that he wasn't necessarily pedophile, but more intrigued on her innocence in the world and in life and enthralled by that more than anything. It was really sad that her mother and her sister always tries to chastise her ways, but I feel underneath they both wished that they could be more like Alice. Alice's older sister drove me up the wall, even when they were old ladies, not sure how you all felt about it.

I felt really sad for Alice when she finally realized she loved her husband cause it was a little late. It also reminded me a little of Hum Dil De Chuke Hain Sanam- yes, I had to bring in the Bollywood connection.

Had I written this immediately after I had finished the book, I would have a little more depth to the post, I do apologize for procrastinating. I would love to get a glimpse of society and its norms when Alice was growing up to get a better idea of her story and fully understand the implications of being an innocent child getting caught up in adult gossip. On the other hand, it still happens today, so really society hasn't really changed much since Alice's time.

I've already ready Cutting for Stones, which I did enjoy. I'll start commenting on everyone else's thoughts as you progress through the book.

April's Decision

Ferah, Antara, and I agreed that Cutting for Stones would be a good book for next month. Since Neha doesn't ever contribute to the blog, she has relinquished her rights to have an opinion. Also, we can't change it now because Ferah already bought the paper copy on Amazon.

Antara, Ferah mentioned a book called The Help by Kathryn Stockett which she has already read and really enjoyed and recommended it to us as a second book, if we finish early.

Garlic & Sapphires Progress?

I'm over half way through Garlic & Sapphires, and I know we were supposed to be done with that book by Thursday. Just wanted to get a sense if anyone else was reading it.

Also, suggestions for next month's book -- Vaishali & I had seen an interesting book from Oprah's Book Club called 'Say You're One of Them,' a collection of not-so-short stories: http://www.oprah.com/oprahsbookclub/About-the-Book-Say-Youre-One-of-Them-by-Uwem-Akpan

Let me know what you guys think!

Alice I have liked

Alice as the Gypsy girl

Interesting -- two for two where I have the complete opposite taste as Charitha in a book.

Well, I'm glad both you and Ferah responded to the book, as me and Vaish were starting to get depressed that the book club had turned into BSBC (Bhardwaj Sisters' Book Club) ... but, no! We have real members!

Charitha, I agree with you that it was really disappointing when the spunky 7 year old grew into the conservative teenager. But I didn't feel disappointed with the author, but to me it was just a reality of what societal pressures do to you. She would find herself worrying about those same things that her mother and sister had always wanted her to be aware of, which she thought were totally frivolous when she was 7. I didn’t think it was her taking the incident ‘lying down,’ but more that she didn’t even fully understand what the incident was. And then part of her realized that if she told her mother that Mr. Dodgy was innocent in the kiss – that would mean that she, Alice, was the guilty party … and she was smart enough to realize that THAT would not make the situation any better for her. So it was better to let them think that Mr. Dodgson had victimized her, rather than her being the aggressor … it’s like a kid thinking they’ll get in trouble if their parents find out that they broke the expensive lamp … so just let them think that the dog knocked it over (sorry to compare Mr. Dodgson to a dog, lol).

Ferah, I hadn’t actually seen the gypsy girl photo the entire time when reading the novel, Vaish showed it to me just the other day. And I didn’t even realize that these were real people – I thought it was the author’s imagination to create a ‘real Alice’ and ‘real Lewis Carrol,’ although I believe a lot of it was fictionalized. And I don’t think my Kindle had these author’s notes you were talking about??  I can believe that the Victorian era viewed children in a different way as compared to what we’re seeing this as … having said that, I think it was always presumed that Mr. Dodgson’s interest in Alice was a little extraordinary – which was why it fueled such anger in her older sister and the nanny as well. Her older sister was a right twat (said in a British accent).

I liked watching her transition into a young woman, and especially liked the romance with the Prince, though I was really irritated with her that she succumbed to Mr. Ruskin’s blackmail to take ‘art classes’ with him. I actually found her a little less interesting as an adult, because I guess at that point I kind of felt like ‘Shouldn’t you have already gotten over your insecurity about the Dodgson issue?’ But for her, it shaped so much of her life, and she never confronted it … always skirted around it. I liked the scene when she went back to visit Mr. Dodgson with her three sons. I thought it was tragic how she viewed this man as an adult, as compared to how perfect he seemed to her when she was 7. And I felt her anger when Mr. Dodgson didn’t see that Alice turned out all right. I also felt particularly angry towards Mr. Dodgson when he said something to the effect of ‘Do you see why I don’t like little boys?’ He was saying something about how they have to grow into being young men … but to me it just reminded me of his weird pedophilia all over again.

I think the quote about stealing her Wonderland, was really on point. He stole a part of her life by exposing her in those photos, and she inexorably became scarred from Dodgson’s presence in her life. But I think she did the same for him. Her advances towards him also scarred him – because he was also chastised by this influential family, and I think he turned into a sad, lonely person after that whole incident. What I found interesting is that Alice mentioned that her mother begged Alice’s father to fire Dodgson from the University, but he never did … and Alice never understood why. I wonder … was this a chauvinistic thing where the father did not feel the pain or importance of the ‘stain’ on Alice’s character caused by this incident … or was there a part of him that seriously doubted that all that had happened was as dramatic as the ladies were making it out to be?

Anyway, I did really enjoy the book – more than I had expected. But it’s interesting to hear the certain things I liked about the book are the exact same things that you didn’t like in the book!

Comments on Alice I Have Been

Hello from Inds!

I can't get it together while I'm here to write a full post (and also, to be honest, I didn't truly enjoy the book) but I have to say that Ferah is right, the Reader's Guide is really important! It was my favorite part of the whole book.

I think my problem with the book is summarized in Ferah's paragraph about Alice being the victim and thinking she is plagued by misery all the time. I felt that in the first section, I liked Alice (as a child) - she was funny and spunky. When it skipped to 10 years later, as a young adult, I felt that she had lost that fire; it seemed out of character to me that she had taken the whole issue with Mr. Dodgson lying down (no pun intended!) instead of fighting for the truth. I understand that later she accepts this as the shortcomings of a child who was anxious to stay out of trouble, but it just wasn't believable to me. I did like the older Alice; the stories about her sons were the most enjoyable -- the reactions she had to losing them seemed the most real and touching. I loved the story about finding her middle son on the floor in the library, trying to read Alice in Wonderland.

I did feel that the author did a great job of flushing out the characters - I hated the older sister, sometimes the mother, definitely Mr. Ruskin, and loved the prince, etc. But I did think the plot was a little thin. I remember reading the back cover and the book was described as having a bit of a mystery, and I just felt the "mystery" was a total disappointment. We spent the whole book wondering what actually transpired between her and Mr. Dodgson that would ruin two lives so fully...and it was just a kiss that was described earlier in the novel?

I don't think I'm being particularly eloquent at this time with points about why I had issues with the book. I will revisit it later. But I do remember reading that both Vaishali and Antara liked the book, so I want to hear some good things about the book from you guys! Maybe I can look at it in a new light.