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just_the_things5. Read 5 wrapped books
I finished Amalee by Dar Williams today. Dar and I share a birthday, and she happens to be my favorite singer-songwriter. I instantly bought this, her first book, when I found out about it. It took me a while to get to reading it, so I'm glad I ended up wrapping it to surprise myself with later. I liked that it dealt with a lot of interesting issues and themes you don't normally see in children's fiction (what a sick parent really goes through when he's scared of dying, close family friends who become a found family, feelings of a child who thinks she's the school bully, and more). I liked a lot of it, especially how real the emotions and dialogue felt; people don't often say the right thing at the right time in the real world, and they don't always say what they mean. I didn't so much care for the hypnosis section; it seemed a little too out there and blunt/obvious. I wish that that information could have come out a little more organically in the narrative. But otherwise, I really enjoyed seeing Amalee interact with her father's best friends and seeing them band together to help support her and her father seemed to be dying. It was also refreshing how it read like a kid's train of thought. The story jumped a lot, and there was a lot of uncertainty and misunderstanding. I felt for everyone in the book.
Progress: 1 / 5
I finished Amalee by Dar Williams today. Dar and I share a birthday, and she happens to be my favorite singer-songwriter. I instantly bought this, her first book, when I found out about it. It took me a while to get to reading it, so I'm glad I ended up wrapping it to surprise myself with later. I liked that it dealt with a lot of interesting issues and themes you don't normally see in children's fiction (what a sick parent really goes through when he's scared of dying, close family friends who become a found family, feelings of a child who thinks she's the school bully, and more). I liked a lot of it, especially how real the emotions and dialogue felt; people don't often say the right thing at the right time in the real world, and they don't always say what they mean. I didn't so much care for the hypnosis section; it seemed a little too out there and blunt/obvious. I wish that that information could have come out a little more organically in the narrative. But otherwise, I really enjoyed seeing Amalee interact with her father's best friends and seeing them band together to help support her and her father seemed to be dying. It was also refreshing how it read like a kid's train of thought. The story jumped a lot, and there was a lot of uncertainty and misunderstanding. I felt for everyone in the book. Progress: 1 / 5
