Reading Roundup: August 2019

Why Religion? by Elaine Pagels

I've still never read any of Pagel's other books, but I'd read a number of positive reviews of this and it intrigued me. The book is a good overview of not only her life, but her evolving scholarship. I will confess that this book challenged me at times because her view of religion is quite different from mine. It was a good exercise in simply listening and working to understand, and I hope I learned something.

The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy by Mackenzi Lee

I had a bit of a 'book hangover' after finishing Lee's first book and was excited to read the sequel. Felicity was not my favorite character from the first book, but by the end of this one she had grown on me. It also went in some surprising directions and I quite liked it by the end.

The Current by Tim Johnston

This book used two different stories, one from the past and one from the present, that only loosely tie together. It took a while for everything to come together, so the book was slow to get started. I didn't hate it, it wasn't my favorite either.

Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield

On the other hand, this book had a lot of different threads that all came together wonderfully in the end. It had a bit of fantasy in it, but just enough to make the story fun and not completely unbelievable. And, as a bonus, the writing was simply gorgeous. I was sad to leave this book behind.

Big Sky by Kate Atkinson

I liked most of Atkinson's other books in this series and had looked forward to this one. However, it just wasn't quite as good as the others. The main case is fairly dark, making the author's dry sense of humor seem a bit weird, and I just didn't connect with most of the characters in a way that made me care about what happened to them.

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

I've been a little hesitant to write about this book because I've struggled to figure out my feelings about it. The writing is wonderful and the plot continually surprised me as I kept reading. It's also quite dark and horrific, and I had to take some breaks along the way. Breaks I feel bad about, because everything in the book is taken from history and all has its basis in truth. This book will make you feel bad and uncomfortable--and that's the point.

Gay Rights and the Mormon Church: Intended Actions, Unintended Consequences by Gregory Prince

I really wanted this book to be good, and I think it's a decent start. However, it could have been at least twice as long--although it is fairly wide-ranging and touches on a lot of issues, many of them are barely touched on. The book has two other big weaknesses. First, it hardly engages with other scholarship and relies heavily on interviews, which seems weird to me because a number of good and important things have been written about homosexuality and the Church over the last few decades. Second, it says almost nothing about the international membership of the Church. Reading it could give you the impression that the Church is only focused on the United States, and Utah in particular. While many major political issues have taken place in the US, I would have appreciated more acknowledgement of the larger membership of the Church. I've really liked Prince's other books quite a lot, but this one just didn't work for me.

Exit West by Mohsin Hamid

It feels weird to describe a book about refugees fleeing war as 'lovely', but the love story at the heart of this book was wonderfully rendered. Despite the allegorical nature of the book, I still felt close to both of the main characters and felt like I could understand so much more about the refugee experience after reading this.

Movies

Mary Poppins

The kids all said they didn't remember ever watching this and wanted to watch it before we saw the new new one. We all enjoyed it, cheesy visual effects and all, and now I feel like we are all much more culturally literate than we were before watching it. 

Yesterday

S-Boogie and I went and saw this while the other two kids were gone on a trip with their dad. It was a lot of fun, but I felt like in the end it wasn't very memorable and the plot was rather thin.

Romeo + Juliet

This was another favorite movie of mine that I wanted to introduce to S-Boogie. She was skeptical and thought it was a little weird, but I still enjoy it after numerous viewings.

Mary Poppins Returns

Seeing this so soon after the first one created an interesting contrast. It had fun new songs and I thought the acting was great. However, it lagged a bit in spots and didn't feel particularly memorable.  
About Time

I had somehow confused this movie with something else and had never gotten around to seeing it. If you think too hard about it, the time travel aspects really don't make a lot of sense. However, the story itself is thoroughly charming and it went in a number of unexpected directions. I'm a sucker for Richard Curtis movies and for all of the actors in this one--I think I'll be rewatching it again soon.

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