Michael Verroen Verroen থেকে Parada, 4485-242 Guilhabreu, Portugal
you know what's *not* a "goodread"? this book. i picked it up because i always count on chick lit to cheer me up. my dog had just died people, so i was ready to appreciate anything. what better than a book about a camp where men learn to be real men? i was laughing already. then i started reading. in case anyone was wondering, i have found the watermark for the worst written book pretty much ever. i wanted so badly to like it and that just made it worse. for 200 pages i couldn't tell who the protagonist was, whether it was lucy or martha, and when, 10 pages before the ending, martha was described as having long, dark curls, i was completely stunned. if i never hear about bird mating calls again it will be too soon (ps. Laura Zigman covered it in "animal husbandry", a much more enjoyable read) you know what? i'll let the book speak for itself: "Out the window she sees the barn, tiny in the distance, and wonders if the cows are asleep. Then she wonders if the men have gone to bed, if she's put on weight, if Beatrice has always been this interfering and if, indeed, stars are totally unnecessary miracles." told you so.
When I started this book, I was dating a Mormon. By the time I ended this book, we had broken up. Though Ostling presents a well-balanced, meticulously researched overview of Mormonism and dispels some of the myths about Mormonism (for example, polygamy), I still found this a tough read. As someone raised without religion, who if anything gravitates towards Buddhism and Krishnamurti, there were parts of the book--on censorship and authority, on blacks, on women--that were hard to stomach, much less believe.