Kindle Book: A Handmaid's Tale

The Handmaid's Tale

by Margaret Atwood

Length: 311

Format: eBook
Price: Downloaded from Overdrive

How I heard about it: It's on my list.

Basic Premise: A handmaid has one job - to produce a child. But the child is not her own - it will belong to her master and his wife. Torn from her husband and child and stripped of everything down to her name, the handmaid struggles to find a way among this newfound bondage.

My Take: 7 out of 10 (scale here)

UGH. This book was so dark. And it was a lot like The Poisonwood Bible in that it dealt with people who cared more about following religious rules than they did about knowing God. It was intriguing (I read it in three days) and troublesome and depressing all at the same time.  I liked the protagonist, but I didn't quite feel like I connected with her. She was a bit unbelievable in parts. It's a dystopian book published in 1986 - well before dystopians were popular. I found that interesting from a literature perspective, and having read so many of them by now. I also discovered while I was reading that this is the second book I've read by this author. The first was Alias Grace, which I also enjoyed, but also found very dark.

List Progress:

1. I Am Malala by Christina Lamb and Malala Yousafzai review here
2. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
3. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
4. Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher review here
5. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
6. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving review here
7. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver review here
8.  Does My Head Look Big in This? by Randa Abdel-Fattah review here
9. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Timeby Mark Haddon
10. Uglies by Scott Westerfeld (read before I started blogging)
11. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
12. Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie review here
13. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson (read before I started blogging)
14. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
15. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer review here
16. Bossypants by Tina Fey
17. Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey
18. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (read before I started blogging)
19. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd (read before I started blogging)
20. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen *abandoned*
21. Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell review here
22. She’s Come Undone by Wally Lamb
23. Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling - can we have a moment for whoever created this list? "Harry Potter" is not a book. It's a series of books. Sheesh.
24. Looking for Alaska by John Green review here
25. The Book Thief by Markus Zuzak review here
26. The Kite Runner by Khaled Housseini review here

Kindle Book: The Poisonwood Bible

The Poisonwood Bible

by Barbara Kingsolver

Length: 576

Format: eBook
Price: Downloaded from Overdrive

How I heard about it: It's on my list.

Basic Premise: A young missionary family sets out to Christian-ize a remote area of the Congo in the early 1960s. What began as a bright adventure full of joy and promise leaves the family scarred and scattered.

My Take: 6.5 out of 10 (scale here)

This book was very well-written. It alternated between the perspective of five characters, four of whom were the daughters, and though I anticipated it would be difficult to keep them all straight, it actually wasn't. The beautiful language and imagery made it seem like I could step outside and be there, in the middle of the Congolese jungle, watching children play, swatting mosquitoes, and eating a freshly-picked banana.

But for all the book's positives, it was just so...uncomfortable. The father, the one who felt so "called" to "ministering" to the people of the Congo, was a tyrannical, maniacal psychopath who idolized his own integrity and righteousness far above his God. In this process, he alienated his "church-goers" (who were really just there to come in from the sun) and drove a wedge so deep between himself and his family that when things started to fall apart, he didn't even notice. I did loved how the author played with irony - this man was obsessed with getting people baptized. He kept trying to get people to come down to the river and be baptized, but because he made no effort whatsoever to get to know the people or the culture, he didn't realize the river was infested with vicious crocodiles who had picked off a number of the villagers already. It was so depressing to me to read about this pious, ungodly man who ranked right up there with the scum of the earth and think about the fact that people believed he was a man of God. And because of that sampling, they said, "No, thank you, I don't want anything to do with God." It makes me uncomfortable because I have known people like him and I have read and heard the sorts of things he said. It makes me uncomfortable because I know that, while I strive to love and live for and serve this God, there are visible moments when my life or my words or my deeds or my all of the above reflect the opposite effort. It's a lot to stomach the fact that something I do might shape the opposite feeling about God in others. In short, the discomfort comes from the similarities I was able to draw from this horrible man to myself. It made me shudder many, many times.

ALTHOUGH! There was a glorious moment in the book, where the former missionary in their post comes through, and rather than spouting off about sins and hell and death, he is dispensing food and medicine and clothing to the people who are in such desperate need. One of the daughters begins to dialogue with him about how different the people respond to him over her father. His response, "Well, my dear, there are Christians, and then there are Christians."

Yes. Yes there are.

List Progress:

1. I Am Malala by Christina Lamb and Malala Yousafzai review here
2. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
3. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
4. Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher review here
5. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
6. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving review here
7. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
8.  Does My Head Look Big in This? by Randa Abdel-Fattah review here
9. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Timeby Mark Haddon
10. Uglies by Scott Westerfeld (read before I started blogging)
11. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
12. Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie review here
13. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson (read before I started blogging)
14. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
15. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer review here
16. Bossypants by Tina Fey
17. Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey
18. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (read before I started blogging)
19. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd (read before I started blogging)
20. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen *abandoned*
21. Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell review here
22. She’s Come Undone by Wally Lamb
23. Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling - can we have a moment for whoever created this list? "Harry Potter" is not a book. It's a series of books. Sheesh.
24. Looking for Alaska by John Green review here
25. The Book Thief by Markus Zuzak review here
26. The Kite Runner by Khaled Housseini review here

Another Goal Down...

So...it's 2016. It's still early, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and say 2016 is going to be the year we FINALLY conquer debt.

In November, my car bit the dust. Obviously, buying a new one was not part of our financial plan. In fact, our financial plan was looking like this:

1. Establish an emergency fund of $1000 CHECK
2. Pay off Loan #1 - car. GOAL: Paid off by September 2013. CHECK
3. Pay off Loan #2 - credit card. GOAL: Paid off by Christmas 2013 CHECK
4. Pay off Loan #3 - other car. GOAL: Paid off by end of school year, 2014 by end of summer, 2014 by February 2015 CHECK
5. Pay off renovation - GOAL: Paid off by end of summer, 2015 CHECK
6. Pay off LAST LOAN - Undergrad. GOAL: Paid off by August 2016 May 2016

Buying Big Blue delayed #6. That sucked. But, what was really cool was that we were able to pay half down and had a plan to pay it off in 6 months. I am happy to report that the 6 month timetable has shrunk to four and we will have Big Blue paid off by the end of this month!

So technically, the list looks like this:

1. Establish an emergency fund of $1000 CHECK
2. Pay off Loan #1 - car. GOAL: Paid off by September 2013. CHECK
3. Pay off Loan #2 - credit card. GOAL: Paid off by Christmas 2013 CHECK
4. Pay off Loan #3 - other car. GOAL: Paid off by end of school year, 2014 by end of summer, 2014 by February 2015 CHECK
5. Pay off renovation - GOAL: Paid off by end of summer, 2015 CHECK
6. Pay off Big Blue - GOAL: February 2016
7. Pay off LAST LOAN - Undergrad. GOAL: Paid off by August 2016 May 2016 October 2016

So even though I thought buying Big Blue was really going to set us back, if I look at our original goal of being debt-free by August 2016, we are only talking about a two-month delay. Not bad at all.