Romance and ghost stories for your summer reading list
Kat Lerue - May 1st, 2008We come to the end of a long and winding semester. I hope somewhere in our scholarly travels this semester I have convinced you to crack open a friendly book. I look forward to summer because, well, that is when I finally get time to read, because, well, I am tremendous dork.
Hopefully, you too are looking forward to a little one-on-one time with a paged friend. I find summer a great time to indulge in what I call “guilt reads.” Allow me to recommend a couple of my favorites.
I’m not one for romance novels. I will never crack open the latest Danielle Steel or quote a bodice ripper. Occasionally though, a love story stays with a girl. With spring in the air, I can’t help but get a little sentimental and recommend you love birds my favorite. So grab a box of tissues and a copy of The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger.
The Time Traveler’s Wife is a love story narrated by two people. Clair and Henry, our amorous heroes, cannot be together. Or at least, not for very long. Henry, due to some weird genetic disorder, bounces in and out of time, traveling into the past and the future. Clair is left behind, hanging out in the present while Henry evaporates. This is stressful on their relationship because Henry returns to Clair possessing all sorts depressing knowledge that hinders them from living normal lives.
The Time Traveler’s Wife is not, however, a perfect book. The thing that bugged me the most was its relentless pop culture references.
Name dropping The Violent Femmes and Iggy Pop does make the fangirl in me giddy, but it’s also obnoxious. Literature is many things, but it is never some scene kid’s MySpace profile.
In the end, despite unrelenting zeitgeists, The Time Traveler’s Wife succeeds because the story has heart and makes some real connections. The book does not hide the tragedy or the joy of its characters and, ultimately, achieves something human.
Or how about something scary?
In Junior High, I couldn’t get enough Stephen King. Too squeamish for horror movies I settled for the printed page, and King delivered the blood, guts and marrow I was looking for.
Recently, I happened across one of King’s more recent publications, Lisey’s Story. I finished it in two days.
Lisey’s Story is about a woman who, following her writer husband’s death, begins to be haunted by an array of unnerving occurrences. Lisey is being stalked while her husband, it would appear, is trying to contact her from beyond the grave. Lisey is forced to reexamine her past and face the possibility that the terrifying and magical visions of her husband might be real.
More emotional than King classics like Carrie or The Shining but still able to pack terrifying punches, Lisey’s Story is a perfect fast and fun read sure to keep you up late hiding under your covers this summer.
Well, that does it for “Unshelved Ideas” this semester. There are an incomprehensible number of books out there, and maybe, just maybe, I’ve helped you pick out a good one!