This week i.e., from 27th of September to 3rd of October, it’s the Banned Books Week and so, I’ve taken the following prompt from the 2020 Popsugar Reading Challenge:
Read a banned book during Banned Books Week.
There are A LOT of books which have been banned over time and so, selecting a particular book took a lot of looking through lists, reading synopsis and whether I would actually be able to get the book. Finally, I selected the following book:
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower has been banned frequently since it apparently features “profanity, and descriptions of drug abuse, sexually explicit conduct and torture”.
But it’s also one of most read contemporaries and so, I’m really glad to celebrate the #bannedbooksweek with this read !
Now, about the book I read last week, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
So, the narrator tells the story of the young millionaire, Jay Gatsby, his neighbor. He gains an insight of his life as they later become friends. It’s the classic tale of a poor guy driven by his love for a rich girl, goes away with a passion to earn money and then, returns years later, to realize the dream of being with her. It’s set in the 1920s, so it has a uniquely periodic background.
The tale turns tragic as a lot of other factors come into play (don’t want to give any spoilers) and at the end, I just felt pity for Gatsby who was this close to making his dream come true but couldn’t.
This is one of the hardest reviews I’ve ever written because I have some mixed feelings about this book. I definitely liked it because the story is interesting and some of it was just brilliant.
In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.”Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”
by F.Scott Fitzgerald.
These are, hands down, one of the best first lines of a book I’ve ever read.
But I also think it’s maybe a little bit overrated. I mean this book went from not-a-success to being ‘the greatest american novel’ and that doesn’t seem right.
Anyway, I recommend everyone read it because it’s hardly 200 pages !
What are you reading currently ?
Tell me all about it.
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