Going Solo

As a kid, I put off Roald Dahl's autobiographies.  I kept saying to myself I'll read it eventually.  Here I am in my 30's finally reading them.  This is an entertaining book about Dahl's experiences in World War II.  The second half of the book deals with his experiences as a pilot.  I liked the first half of the book more.  There were amusing stories about deadly snakes and a lion that almost eats a woman.  I thought the interaction between the character Mdisho and him was pretty funny.  Roald Dahl was an extremely versatile writer.  He could write children's books and adult books.  Not many people in America are aware of his abilities as an adult writer as his fame has been eclipsed by such books as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.   Really though you should read his short stories for adults as they are clever and entertaining. 

Sanctuary

This book follows the character Temple Drake.  The book is about sex slavery, rape, and murder.  In many ways, it is more of a book covering topics of today instead of the 30’s.  William Faulkner isn’t the easiest author to read.  I gave up The Sound and the Fury.  None of the characters are redeemable in this book but I kept reading anyway.  There was a movie with Miriam Hopkins called The Story of Temple Drake.  Leonard Maltin gave it a high rating.  For some reason, it’s not available.  Neither is the Lee Remick version called Sanctuary.  I wish these were available.  When you read a book you usually want to see the movie of it and this wasn’t possible for me concerning both movies.

The Darkest Child

This was a pretty impressive debut, the only book by Delores Phillips although she was in the works of writing a sequel before she died.  This book is about Tangy Mae, a brilliant African American girl who wants to get out of the family and town that entrap her.  Tangy's mother is pretty messed up, having no problems with pimping Tangy out.  Tangy gets the offer of going to a white school but her mother is set against it.  Tangy is the only one in her family who is capable of getting a high school diploma.  Tangy also experiences other problems like her crush on her sister Martha Jean's husband.  The edition I got was around 387 pages but it went by pretty quickly.  

I'll give you the sun

I'm just starting to get into young adult fiction.  I used to be snobby about not calling it literature.  Then I read John Green and realized I was wrong.  It took me a while to get into the book but when I did it was a page-turner.  It's about twins, a girl and a boy called Jude and Noah.  They've drifted apart.  Both are artists and enrolling at an arts high school called CSA.  Noah is gay and has a crush on a boy named Brian.  The sister tries to get an established artist to help her with sculpturing.  The plot jumps from the current time and three years ago.  Eventually, everything even discovering more about their dead mother, collide. It was a fast read and won a few deserved awards.