WWW Wednesdays (28th November)

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books, feel the fear and do it anyway, fiction, jeffrey eugenides, john green, paper towns, susan jeffers, the virgin suicides, WWW Wednesdays, WWW_Wednesdays

WWW Wednesdays hosted by MizB at Should Be Reading

What are you currently reading? 

At the moment I’m reading Paper Towns by John Green. I was bought it in February but wanted to save it for sometime special as I loved the two other novels I’ve read by Green: Looking For Alaska and An Abundance of Katherines. However, after too long spent staring longingly at the book’s cover I decided just to get on with reading it. I’m only about fifty pages in at the moment but so far I’m really enjoying it.

 What did you recently finish reading?

I recently finished The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides. For reasons I discussed in an earlier blog post I’m not really sure what my feelings towards it are. It’s definitely a novel I’ll have to read again at some point to really decide whether or not I like it.

 

What do you think you’ll read next?

I’m looking forward to reading Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway by Susan Jeffers. My sister has recommended this book to me, saying that it’s a great guide to changing how you think about yourself, deal with life’s challenges and interact with others in a more fulfilling way.

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How to ruin a novel with your own expectations: The Virgin Suicides and me

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adult, book, book expectations, books, death, expectations, fiction, imaginings, jeffrey eugenides, life, Lisbon sisters, mental health, novels, reading, sisters, suicide, the virgin suicides, young adult, young adult fiction

I’d wanted to read The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides for a long time. Ever since I saw the cover, the word ‘suicide’ above a young girl lying on a patch of bright green grass, brown shoes, white tights and a pink dress conveying her youth and innocence, I was intrigued.

I’d heard it was really good, great, amazing and had seen book posters proclaiming it “bewitching” (Vogue) and even “one of the finest novels in many years – a Catcher in the Rye for our time” (Observer). And so it came to pass that instead of picking up a copy and turning to the blurb or searching for the synopsis on Wikipedia, I imagined what I thought the novel was about.