What to Read This Week

Here are the books I’m adding to my to-read list this week and think you should too!

Wonder by R.J. Palacio: Auggie Pullman has been protected in his small slice of heaven for years.  He has been homeschooled and protected by his loving family and feels safe in house.  Now, however, he can no longer rely on that protection as he heads to a mainstream school.  Making this transition even harder is that Auggie’s face is totally disfigured and even the adults he meets in the real world are unable to look at him.  This sounds a little like what would’ve happened if the Phantom of the Opera came from a loving family that didn’t throw him out in the trash when he was born and I’m interested to see how this changes our protagonists outlook on life and whether or not he’s able to escape the fate of the Byronic hero.  Unlike Phantom though, this novel isn’t written to be totally serious and Palacio includes humor to break up the serious parts.
We Need to Talk about Kevin by Lionel Shriver: This is a book I’ve been hearing a lot about but having really brought myself to read. Told in epistolary style between Eva and her estranged husband the reader is taken on a journey to discover what has led their son, Kevin, to walk into his high school and murder nine people.  What intrigues me about this book is the fact it’s told through the eyes of the shooter’s parents, rather than the victims’.  A lot of books have been written surrounding school shootings, but few ask the question how do you come to terms with this when the shooter is your own son and I’d like to see what Shriver does with this. A book in this vein I have read and can recommend to you is A Thousand Cuts, which I enjoyed but what a tough one to read.
The Map of Time by Felix J. Palma: I saw this book at a bookstore last summer and picked it up because it looked awesome but haven’t sat down and read it yet.  Main character H.G. Wells (yes, you guessed it, another Victorian London/steampunk/gothic lit pick) is investigating incidents of time travel and must save the lives of three different people including his own wife.  The twist (or at least the one given away in the summary) Wells’s wife may be in on the plot to kill not only Wells himself, but also author Stoker.  While it jumps around from topic to topic in not quite Cloud Atlas style this book just sounds awesome.  Of course, as I’ve said before, this is also my favorite genre.  And it’s the first book in a series.  Yay.