Today I set a goal for myself for 2010: to read 50,000 pages by the end of the year. Why? Because reading is one of the few things I am truly brilliant at. It makes me feel like myself and makes me feel like I have some vague control over my world for a few precious minutes. If I could find a career that involved reading good books all day long I would do it in a heartbeat. (Come to think of it, they wouldn't even have to all be good ones. I've read some real doozies in my time...) I am going to blog in order to hold myself accountable for what I am reading.
Today I finished Mercy by Jodi Picoult (400 down, 49600 to go). It was good, but not her best. I hate the books where she just drops off at the end. Yes, I know its supposed to leave you hanging so you can create your own opinion, but sometimes she leaves too many big questions in the air. Mercy is about a man who kills his terminally ill wife at her request. It definitely brings up questions about the right to die and the value of life. It is also about another couple who deal with the consequences of an affair. I wasn't happy with the way she dealt with the affair issue because she almost made it okay for the wife to seek revenge. I'm not sure what she should have done with it, but in a book with the recurring theme of keeping promises, allowing dark secrets to stay that way seemed a bit off.
Next up is Picoult's Change of Heart. We'll see if that one goes better...
Great goal. I feel the same way you do: reading is my favorite pastime, and I am so good at it, though other things sometimes suffer because I am reading too much...
ReplyDeleteLet me know what you think of Change of Heart. I read it a while ago....