Adam Shields

Takeaway: Would you consent if you knew that your death (or the deaths of your friends) might save millions? What if you had already consented, but you don’t remember?

Genre books are a wonderful thing.  They give markers for the type of book you are reading.  They follow standards and allow you to dig deeper into an idea than if the author started from scratch.  Some genre books allow you to relax into them or mindlessly wander away for a few hours knowing you will not have to think too hard.

The struggle of genre books is that they can become too repetitive and too predictable.  Dystopian young adult fiction is getting to the too predictable point.  The Selection was an example of a book that had lost some of its purpose and social commentary.

So I am glad to report that the Maze Runner series (at least so far) has stayed within the genre, but broken outside the standard mold.  This is not a repeat of the Hunger Games or Divergent.  But you can see some of the family markers.  If anything, this book feels more like Orson Scott Card’s classic, Ender’s Game, than most other modern dystopian novels.

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Takeaway: In a novel it seems to be appropriate to spread out a simple story over a five day car trip.

I am a fan of young adult fiction.  But I often do not enjoy middle grade fiction.  There is something about the middle grade years that seems to rub me the wrong way.  I am not sure what it is.

Whatever it is, Walk Two Moons seemed to hit all my buttons.  The story is narrated by the main character (Sal) as she and her grandparents drive from her home to see her mother.

Coincidentally, Sal tells her grandparents about her best friend (Phoebe) and how Phoebe’s mom disappeared without a trace.  And how that affected Phoebe and those around her.  Of course, this is partially her own story. Sal’s mother left the family, which led to Sal and her Dad leaving their family farm and moving into town.  So Sal is relating Phoebe’s story as a way of coming to terms with her own story.

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Takeaway: The background to a book can be as interesting as the book itself (so read those epilogues and acknowledgements and introductions, they are often important.)

I really intended to re-read The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction this summer.  I have lots of good intentions with my reading.  But I often get distracted (squirrel!) with other books.

I also forgot that I bought Reverting to Type nearly 18 months ago, right after Jacobs released it.  I stumbled on it again last week and read it on a quick Friday afternoon (it is only 32 pages).

The Pleasures of Reading is a very freeing book, focusing on rediscovering reading as a pleasure, not a chore.  And Reverting to Type is more of a personal description of the same thing.

Jacobs is an English prof (25 years at Wheaton and moving to Baylor this fall).  So after giving the reader a description of his family background in reading (involving lots of westerns, science fiction and detective novels).  He talked about how he became a professor and began teaching. What was important for this essay (and related to the Pleasures of Reading) was that once when he was frustrated in grad school and again later as a professor he realized that the pleasure of the ‘genre fiction’ was valuable.

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