Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

This book is about the earth in the future, when all sadness is engineered out of society. Below is my post for the book club (although this was my own choosing, not on the book club list).

I really enjoyed this book. The first chapter especially was a little creepy when they were describing how they engineer society, but beyond that the story was very interesting. The idea of a "happy" society that has no troubles or cares sounds nice, until you realize that they have all lost their free will. Being engineered to a certain class, trained up from birth to like what you do, and being drugged to continue to think there is nothing wrong with that. It's very interesting.

I thought the contrast between Lenina, Bernard, Helmholtz, John (the Savage), and Mustapha Mond was interesting. They represented the different people in the society, the different levels to which they fit into that society. Lenina represented the majority of people, going along with what they had been taught, not wanting to see any of the bad, and willing to take "holidays" as often as possible. Bernard and Helmholtz were on the fringe, having minds and ideas of their own, not wanting to just go along with everyone else. The difference, however, between Bernard and Helmholtz is that Bernard, I think, was just tired of not fitting in, being made fun of and spoken of negatively, and used that as an excuse to be a renegade, whereas Helmholtz truly did not go along with society and was not afraid to speak out and be different. He didn't care that he didn't fit it. I think deep down, Bernard really just wanted to be like everyone else and was upset that he wasn't.

John was raised outside of the society, always dreaming of being a part of it. Since his mother was from the civilized world, but he was born as a savage, he was rejected by the people he grew up with. When he did make it in to civilized society, he found that he didn't want to be there. Because of the works of Shakespeare he had read, he thought civilized society was what it was before they all became happy and productive. John was looking for what the world used to be, when people had real feelings.

The character that surprised me the most was Mustapha Mond. He had the knowledge that Helmholtz and John had, but he declined the opportunity to go to an island to be with people like him in order to keep society the way it was. I thought that decision was intriguing.

Life as I Know It by Melanie Rose

This was the 2nd book I read for the book club. Better than the first, but still a little lacking. This book is about a woman named Jessica who is struck by lightening. When she wakes up in the hospital, she finds herself in another woman's body. As a single woman, Jessica has to adapt to being a wife and mother of 4 children. My impression:

This was an interesting book. Like "Something Borrowed" the ending was a little too convenient for my taste, but the story and the process that Jessica went through to grow as a person is worth discussing.

The question of God was brought up, but it didn't seem to be resolved. Jessica thinks that there is some sort of supreme being out there somewhere, but she's unclear as to how it operates, what involvement is has in our day-to-day lives. Jessica determines that her soul has been brought into Lauren's body because her family needs Lauren. There is no specific reference to how it happened, but it seemed to be determined that the children needed a mother so much that Jessica was brought into Lauren's life. But that seems to be where the explanation ends, there is no specific reference to Jessica finding God, or some deeper understanding of a supreme being, through the experience.

One aspect of the book that I really liked is that Jessica is able to enter into this family of strangers and become the mother to the four children. She recognizes their needs and is willing to make sacrifices in her life as Jessica in order to be a good mother to the children, and the genuine interest she takes in their lives.

One of the aspect of the book that I found very disappointing (and I am starting to get the feeling that many modern books are like this) was Jessica's relationship with Dan. It was superficially based on love at first sight, tingling feelings, and sex. I didn't see anything that made me feel that they learned about each other's characters or really knew anything about each other, other than a few historical facts.

Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin

I read this book as a part of an online book club I joined. It is about a woman who has an affair with her best friend's fiance. But she is the hero of the book and actually is the good guy in all of this. I'm sure the book jacket makes it sound much more interesting. Below is what I wrote about my impression of the book:

It only took me a couple of days to read this book, and it was interesting to read, I kept reading so much because I just wanted to find out what happened. However, I can't say that I really liked the story very much. The entire time, I kept thinking about how wrong everything was. I especially did not like the ending. It was a happy ending and everything, but then everything seemed to work out just right for everyone. A little too convenient.

I noticed at the end of the book that there is a sequel, the story's continuation told from the friend's point of view. I'm trying to decide if I should read it or not. I'm kind of interested to see what it's like, but at the same time I don't want to be disappointed.

(Since I wrote this, I decided that I definitely don't want to spend my time reading the next books. I don't think they would be worth the time it would take to read them, and I'm not convinced that they will prove to be better for my mind or soul than the first one was.)