I missed doing this last month, what with the SOL frenzy, so I'm being completely self indulgent and doing two lists this time. Part one was yesterday, and here's part two!
My first list spent quite a bit of time on classic works of literature. Today's list is more modern and fairly bleak, which seems fitting too.
1. Room
2. I Hunt Killers
3. The Game of Love and Death
4. Snow Falling on Cedars
5. The Merchant of Venice
6. The Haters
The starting point this month is Emma Donoghue's Room, which I read about five years ago.
It is told from the point of view of a 6 year old boy who has lived his entire life in one room. It becomes clear pretty quickly that he and his mom are prisoners of a man who kidnapped and raped her.
That's pretty grim, right? I mean, besides all the rest of it, it means that the kid's biological father is a creepy kidnapping rapist. Which makes me think of Barry Lyga's I Hunt Killers series, in which the protagonist's dad is the worst serial killer of all time. (Well, the best. Which makes him the worst.)
I really like the black and white and red on the cover of the entire series. It's a classic color combo, and it was also used to great effect on Martha Brockenbrough's The Game of Love and Death. Take a look:
Several years ago my mother-in-law took us to a stage production of it, which was wonderful. Even the scenes in the small fishing boats were beautifully done, which requires a complete buy-in from an audience. I can't remember if she'd gotten us season tickets or what, but we saw an extremely avant-garde* rendition of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice in the same theater around the same time.
These are so much fun to put together. I hope they are worth reading as well. I'll be playing next month as well!
*I'm not actually sure what avant-garde means. I'm basically using it here as a fancy word for "weird."
I’ve read Room, The Game of Love and Death, and The Merchant of Venice. I own Snow Falling on Cedars, but I haven’t read it yet. I’ve heard a lot of good things about it.
ReplyDeleteAj @ Read All The Things!