Brown Girl Dreaming

So, I'm having a lot of firsts in this class.

This book was one of them.

I've heard about books in lyrical form but have never actually read one until now. It was a quick read with all the white space and short poems, and I was pleasantly surprised how well I grasped the content. Originally I thought I would never understand a thing since its all poems, and who understands poems anyway? But I could.

I find it amazing that all of these little poems are stories in themselves that connect to the larger story--an African American girl navigating childhood and trying to figure herself out. A typical theme. I nearly forgot it was a memoir. I didn't even know memoirs could be lyrical.

I don't necessarily think that this book in itself deserved to get the National Book Award; but then again, I'm not entirely sure how these awards go. I think this book would connect much more to African American girls rather than me--my family, as far as I know, never fought in the Civil War, and I don't come from descendents of slaves or have lived in the South. It's because of these things that I felt less of a connection. But I liked the style. I borderline love the style.

The House of the Scorpion

I would have to say that The House of the Scorpion was my second favorite book, after The Book Thief. I'm not one for super realistic coming-of-age stories, and if I do read them, there has to be some kind of spice--interesting and funny characters, major trauma, actually sounding like a teenagers, etc. My favorite novels are more than realistic coming-of-age novels. Usually there has to be something radically different from my real world in order for me to really, really like them, like a fantasy or science fiction element.

Obviously, The House of the Scorpion would fit that.

I think my favorite aspect of this book was Matt and the world around him trying to figure out how human he is and that age old question of, what does it mean to be human? It's a very interesting question, especially for this book since Matt is a clone--a sane clone--and every other clone is stripped of their intelligence. The most vivid scene for me was when Matt and Maria are led to the hospital and Matt is astonished (to put it lightly) to see a clone strapped to a table wailing in fear and pain. I could picture is so, so clearly.

Celia and Tam Lin were, in my opinion, the best characters. When Celia declared that she had basically been poisoning Matt with arsenic so El Patron couldn't harvest his organs so he could live another fifty years I honestly almost hoorayed aloud. El Patron totally deserved that.

And then Tam Lin. Tragic. By far my favorite.

The ending was gasp-worthy. I did NOT see that mass murder coming. I give props to Nancy Farmer for giving the detail about the ground shaking a 100 pages before knowing what it was about, because I completely forgot about it and had to smile at that cleverness.

Happy Thursday.