vhindy's reviews
15 reviews

The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien

adventurous dark emotional mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

Another really good book that I think I enjoyed more than the first after as I sit here after an initial reading. The first had more iconic moments, The Council of Elrond and the Mines of Moria come to mind but I really enjoyed both story lines and found the both equally engaging and less songs.

It can be a tad bit slow sometimes but overall I’m enjoying the series and looking forward to Return of the King

The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien

adventurous mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

I haven’t read the books or watched the movies so this is my first dive into the realm of Middle-Earth and I’m intrigued and looking forward to finishing out the series!

The Fellowship of the Ring is a very strong start. I at least had enough background to understand it was originally written as a single book and then was broken into 3 books. I think I would have been upset with the ending had I not known this going in.

As far as the story, I felt the characters were really well done and you had a clean sense of who all the characters are by the end of the book but there are still a lot of them that are introduced. I’d say that was the more challenging part for me going into it.

I liked the world building and the lore behind the Rings of Power that we learn. 

Some parts that I felt like could be better or will get better as I move along through the series is understanding the locations and the world a bit better, the among of songs in this started to drag for me after awhile.

There were some really tense portions. The scenes with the

black riders were especially good. Especially as they rode into Rivendell. Also… Gandalf surely can’t be dead right? He’s two iconic of a character to be killed off this early in the series

.

I have a sneaking suspicion that this will be my least favorite of the series once we start getting closer to

Mordor and have more interactions with Sauron and his legions.

I’m sure it’ll be a fun ride and we are off to a great start

Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West by Cormac McCarthy

adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I usually write reviews immediate after finishing but I needed to sit with this one a bit.

There’s many things to say about this one. Is it the most violent book I’ve ever read? Yes, with the only thing that comes close being Dante’s Inferno. Is it a challenging book to read? Yes, i spent longer with this one than I have with books that were much longer. Are there any characters that are sympathetic? For me the answer is yes but for most I’ll probably say no. Is the

judge a man or is he something else entirely?

that is up to the reader. As for me, I think he is

the devil himself

and there’s plenty in the story the alludes to that. 

For the very first page you are immediately taken in, the language is old and difficult. It’s easy to miss key details if you read to quickly. There are many untranslated bits of Spanish, German, and Latin, etc scattered through out the book that require lots of effort on the readers part. McCarthy uses limited punctuation and sometimes this includes very long sentences.

That being said, it’s one of the few books that has left my jaw dropped open and it did so on a number of occasions. 

It’s a book that answers as many questions as it leaves open. I’m sure if you ask every person who has read this book they all interpret various parts of it differently.

There was a point at in this book where I continually wondered why a very notorious character is as notorious as he is and then the last 70-100 pages make it very clear.

The book is haunting and out of all the gross and seemingly out of this world imagery we get throughout the book. The ending of some reason was the most nauseating for me. It’s like I spent an evening in hell and then I’m left with just the aftermath.

I feel like there’s so much to still know about it and will need to return to it again in the future. Anything less than 5 stars would be a disservice. This is a rare time i wouldn’t recommend a 5 star book to everyone. It’s not for everyone but for those that make it through the ride is a wild one.

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

adventurous inspiring reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.75

I think this is a book that will always be for more influential than it is nice to read in modern times. 

I can appreciate the impact this had on modern literature as a whole while also recognizing this book can be a bit of a slog to get there. In particular the middle. 

I was happy with it in the beginning, my attention slowly began to wane and in the middle it was a straight up chore to get there. For the last 30% or so it does redeem itself and become wildly more interesting (only judging by this book’s standards) and I felt it ended at the strongest point in the novel. That being said, as a whole, I never thought that an adventure novel about

sailing, getting taken as a space, escaping, getting shipwrecked, surviving, running into cannibals, and mutineers, and fighting off bears and wolves

could be so utterly boring at times that I would struggle to make it through but here we are.

It’s written in a diary format which I soon grew tired of but I found it did have some charms.

To me the most interesting part of the novel was his spiritual journey along the way. He wrestles with questions of the soul and I can appreciate that even over 300 years later.

That being said, can I say I recommend this book? No, not really. The only way I would is if someone is really into classic literature and wants to complete it then dig in. I don’t mind the story and its influence is undeniable but it’s a bit of a slog for the modern reader. I’m glad I read it to say I’ve read it but I won’t be returning or reading on to the sequels.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

My first McCarthy and it was an excellent choice. I think, now that I have young children, I’m in a place where I resonate with the book much more deeply.

I felt the stress of survival every step of the way. There’s seemingly always a risk monsters or horrors around the corner and that sense of dread that is associated with it.

I was expecting it to lean into that quite a bit more at the start but ultimately this is a tale of what it means to be a human when there are no humans left.

The relationship at the center of the novel, the father and his son is powerful.

You can help but feel the impending dread of the father’s long illness that is slowly killing him. He knows it, the boy knows it but they don’t allow themselves to get there until the very end and finally you get the discourse between the two of them. The father in his final moments sees the light that is within the boy. Born in a world where there are no more humans, only those that have become animals. The man would likely have become one too if not for the boy. The boy is somehow caring and humane in this wasteland. The man can recognize that and wishes him to go on to carry the light of humanity forward.

In the end, I think he will. And what is left of the world will be better for it. I’ll definitely need to revisit in the future. Highly recommend.

Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck

emotional funny hopeful lighthearted reflective sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I flipped my opinion on this one as we got to the halfway point. It’s my second Steinbeck after East of Eden and it didn’t disappoint.

It started off setting the tone of a bunch of burn out/petty criminals that found themselves in morally ambiguous situations that they always seemed to find just the right justification why doing the wrong or selfish thing was actually the moral thing to do. Steinbeck’s humor fits well with my own and I found myself laughing and smiling throughout the book. But it seemed surface level.

By the second half I know all the characters well and I became more and more attached to their friendship with each other and Danny (who on paper is not a good person) generosity and selflessness towards his friends.

I found the ending to be sticky

as it dealt with the themes of loss. Danny was the main connection all the friends had with each other and his home was their home. And as they could not attend the funeral, they held a funeral of their own and burnt down his home as a way of sending him off and then parting ways. It was a sad ending and it leaves you in a reflective mood.

  all in all, no one does that type of reflective atmosphere better than Steinbeck and even in his early novels, he is already a master. Good book

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

This is a really interesting book. I can see the criticism of it where

nothing really happens.

. However, I couldn't help but really feel like I enjoyed this. In particular, once Jake & company makes the trip to Spain.

I found so much life in the book. The way Hemingway writes leaves lots of space for the reader to insert their own meanings and thoughts into it. In that way, I found this back half of this book to be profoundly reflective. Maybe it was the time I read it. I had just been feeling really run down and burnt out by the daily tasks and responsibilities and I happened to take a boys trip in the middle of this at around the same time the trip to Spain happens and I just found myself reflecting on things because of the words on the page and how my own life seemed to fill them.

I don't have much in common with the characters and yet I saw myself in them and because of that it made the back half really stick with me. I feel like it will be one that does stick with me. Maybe that'll raise the rating of it in the future but this is how I feel about it today. It's a definite reread for me because I feel like it's dense enough that there's a lot here to get to.

It's not for everyone but I'd recommend it if you find yourself wanting to get into a book that's makes you reflect back onto yourself and what life's purpose is for yourself.

Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell

dark informative reflective tense medium-paced

3.75

An interesting account of Orwell’s time at the front lines in Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War. It’s interesting to watch him go from wide-eyed Socialist committed to the cause and willing happy to fight amongst the Communist to a more jaded version of that. 

He wanted to fight against Franco and the fascists but we are soon sucked into political party infighting that started to over take all the real efforts of the war. 

I can easily see how this infighting lost them the war and frankly, the people Orwell was fighting for proved themselves to be liars, manipulators of the truth, and dangerous. Willing to send men off to, as Orwell describes it, pointless deaths or imprisonments because of scrabbles between the same side.

The end of his time in Spain had him in hiding and in a state of paranoia he would be found and imprisoned. It’s a miracle that he even made it out alive between the war and injury, and his own side trying to get him,

Seems utterly miserable and also addresses the banality of being a foot soldier fighting in a trench war. 

It’s worth a read but I was hoping we would get more digging into the Franco side of the war, all we get is “he’s a fascist” without adding much depth to it. I think he perfectly describes the incompetence and infighting of his own side and you slowly start to become disillusioned along with him along the way. 

The Last Crusade: Spain: 1936 by Warren H. Carroll

dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring sad tense medium-paced

4.25

Really solid book. As an American, I felt I’ve known little to nothing about the Spanish Civil War and it’s seems to be something glossed over. It shouldn’t be.

This book is aptly named the Last Crusade and talks about the conflict that developed between the Spanish revolutionaries who formed the Spanish Republic and the faithful traditionally Catholic who launched, in their view, a crusade against an evil and corrupt ideology which had thousands committing murders and atrocities of the faithful.

The standout her is Francisco Franco & the brave defenders of the Alcazar of Toledo. Franco is not looked upon fondly in history and this book attempts to restore his name. I found his decision making to be justifiable and honorable in most parts. He was not perfect but I felt he is wrongly spit at in modern history.

The truly amazing story here is the story of the Alcazar of Toledo. I won’t spoil it but please read it.

I’d highly recommend this book to faithful Christians and history buffs alike.

The Divine Comedy: The Inferno, the Purgatorio, and the Paradiso by Dante Alighieri

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This is easily the most challenging read of my life but that being said, I’m glad I made it through and I think I would like to revisit it again in the future.

The Inferno is a the famous one which I can see why but I found that Purgatorio was my favorite. Paradiso is was a bit too dense for me and I think an easier translation would do me wonders when I revisit. 

I think this is a book that should be read in a group setting or with discussion but I’d challenge anyone to find a translation that’s readable and give it a try. It’s grand and I think contains many truths about the nature of the Divine and how it relates to men, even if you don’t hold the strictly Catholic view. Give it a try at least one time

Ratings by story:
Inferno: 4.25/5 - Really good imagery but need notes to understand the historical & mythological beings as well as the Florentine Politics of the time

Purgatorio: 4.5/5 - I found this to be so profound and it’s where I came to really love the characters of Dante & Virgil. Near the end where

Virgil disappears

was the most moving and profound part of the story for me. This one should get more hype than it does.

Paradiso: 3/5 - This one was a bit too dense and I’d like to revisit with an easier translation. Lots of symbolism and I think is where it becomes the most Catholic to me. I love how he ended it.

God’s grace and greatness is too much for a mere mortal mind to comprehend, he only knows that his soul is forever changed by what he experienced and he yearns for his return to bask in His glory.

One nitpick I didn’t love how the

character of Beatrice

was presented in Heaven. I just didn’t feel the attachment I thought I would but Dante’s ending words to her were sweet. Maybe I need to read La Vita Nuova to more fully understand her.