Little Klein by Anne Ylvisaker

One of the books from my recent book haul.

I almost hated this book. The first few chapters did not impress me much and I somehow had this inexplicable annoyance towards the tone and style used to narrate the story.

The 67th page, the chapter where The Minister was introduced, changed my initial opinion about this book entirely. 

"The boys called him The Minister because they'd first seen him on a Sunday morning and he'd slapped the water loud as the preacher'd pounded the pulpit on Easter."

I couldn't believe that happened to be the most memorable sentence I read from this book, but that just happened. The story went better after that. A lot more interesting things happened.

Each chapter is short and sweet, and the characters are well explained. I love Little Klein because I can absolutely relate to him, being the youngest with three older siblings. Getting to know LeRoy's thoughts is also something so enjoyable to read. 

This is definitely such a sweet story of boys growing up in the 1940s. Recommended for children (or adults..) who love realistic old school adventures.

4 stars.

Calico Joe by John Grisham

My first serious book review, because I have so many insecurities about writing one.

Read from 16th to 20th April 2014.

My fourth John Grisham book after A Painted House, Bleachers, and The Firm. It is pretty obvious that I have not been reading enough of his legal thrillers, so I basically know nothing about how good his legal thrillers are. The Firm did not please me much, but I have to admit that I am a potential fan of his non-legal books.

The story of Calico Joe is simply what it says on its cover, "A father's guilt. A son's redemption." The story is short and quite predictable, but like Grisham's other non-legal books, the emotional tone makes most of the magic.

It made tears well up in my eyes, but did not do enough to make me cry. I guess those are the special things about Grisham's non-legal stories. They are nostalgic, they bring a lump to your throat, but they don't do anything beyond that. When you put down the book, you can only say "Ahhh, that was a good book," but you just can't explain why is it so good.

I come from a country where baseball is not widely played or broadcasted. However I watch animes about baseball and played it once in primary school, and I enjoyed the game, so the baseball terminologies did not bother me, in fact made me want to know more about the sport. The introduction was a very enjoyable read and by the time I realised I was already reading half of the book, it was 2 A.M. and I knew I just had to finish it right away.

I give this book a 4 over 5 stars since I've read better books from John Grisham. I am looking forward to reading more of his non-legal stories since they have so far proven to be among the books that give me a good feeling when I finish reading.

New Blog and First Post

This will be a place where I write my book reviews and my personal book-related stuffs. I am not good at writing reviews so this seems like the best place where I can keep them for now.

I bought 13 books today which makes me think that I should really start writing reviews instead of giving vague ratings. 

I should be writing one soon!