Books I read in September

September flew by, and I ended up not reading as much as I had hoped. I think it worked out for the best though. Toward the middle/end of September, I had some health issues to deal with, and I was feeling pretty burned out on a lot of things that normally bring me joy. You know: just a sense of overwhelm that comes with constant change, which I feel like my husband and I are in the midst of. So, I have one book that I actually read the whole way through, and one I finally put into my "did not finish" category. I'm a little sad about that, but . . . like, let's just let the reviews speak for themselves, huh?

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, Alan R. Clarke (Translator), James Noel Smith (Illustrator)

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Shelves: Book Club, Children's Literature, Modern Literature

Review: I think, 10 years ago, this book would have hit me pretty deep. It's got a lot of great nuggets of wisdom, strong imagery and correlations with life lessons that you can take with you into your future. For someone looking for their calling, I can see it having a big impact.

Three stars because I liked it! But the writing style wasn't fully engaging for me. The storyline was cute, but obvious. I can see reading this as a bedtime story, or re-reading it in coming years and getting something different out of it each time. I definitely am looking forward to discussing it with my book club because I know this will be one of those books that speaks to others in different and very specific ways, and I know the discussion will be fascinating. I'm glad I finally got around to reading it!

DID NOT FINISH

Dune by Frank Herbert

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Shelves: D-N-F, Modern Literature, Sci-Fi

Review: DNF ~pg.575. I've been attempting to read this book for about a year, so I have a lot of feelings about it. I admire the effort that Frank Herbert put into writing this. He created whole systems, and this novel was the inspiration for cultural influences like Star Wars (which I can clearly see now that I've read the majority of this). His characters were interesting, the story was interesting, these political infrastructures he put together were interesting.

So why did I not finish the book? Well. There are a couple of reasons. First, the whole book carried a level of seriousness I just couldn't get into. The dialogue felt stiff and heavy throughout the whole book (and I get it, this was a precarious time!), but there were hardly any heart-warming or funny moments. Everyone seemed to take themselves *so* *seriously* and that was stifling. Reading is an escape for me (and, I feel, most people), but it felt like a chore to get through most of the time. I can't stick with a book almost 800 pages in length (appendices excluded) when it's all heavy and serious. Second, I think, overall, Herbert's writing style just didn't speak to me. Maybe in conjunction with the first reason, I just didn't care enough about these people to want to see where they ended up. The characters weren't totally likeable for me even if I found them initially interesting. Every time I picked up the book, I could only handle a few chapters before getting bored, and finally, around pg. 575, I decided that I just didn't want to finish this because I honestly didn't care. (I would rather *gasp* watch the movie.) BUT, I gave this book three stars because there is so much potential and was so much effort here. There was a lot of creativity and thought that clearly went into it! Great ideas, poor execution - for me.

I have friends that say it's one of their all-time favorite books and I can understand why! I so wanted to like this book, and I stand by that I would like it had its writing style appealed to me more. But hey, I tried to stick with this book for almost a year and got almost three quarters of the way through it. That should count for something, right?