A Departure from the Legitimate.

30 Day Book and Literature Challenge.

Day 2: Your 5 least favorite books of all time.

1. Veronika Decides to Die- Paulo Coelho 

I really hate when the author addresses the reader. Coelho does this a lot in this novel, and like, right in the middle of the story. So annoying.

2. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn- Mark Twain

DISCLAIMER: This is by no means a bad book.  This is a great book.  I’ve read it about… 6 times in the past two years? It keeps getting assigned in my classes, and I think if I have to read it again I will actually blow my brains out.  

3. The Catcher in the Rye- J.D. Salinger

This books is horrible. White kid whining blah blah blah who cares. 

4. Anything by Stephanie Meyer. 

5. Jazz- Toni Morrison

I love Toni Morrison and all of her books but I could not get into this one at all. 

Excerpt: Jesus’ Son- Denis Johnson

“But I was in bad condition - drunk, and having missed a night’s sleep.  As soon as the stuff entered my system, I passed out.  Two hours went by without my noticing. 

I felt like I’d only blinked my eyes, but when I opened them, my girlfriend and a Mexican neighbor were working on me, doing everything they could to bring me back. The Mexican was saying, “There, he’s coming around now.”

We lived in a tiny, dirty apartment.  When I realized how long I’d been out and how close I’d come to leaving it forever, our little home seemed to sparkle like cheap jewelry.  I was overjoyed not to be dead.  Generally the closest I ever came to wondering about the meaning of it all was to consider that I must be the victim of a joke.  There was no touching the hem of mystery, no little occasion when any of us thought - well, speaking for myself only, I suppose - that our lungs were filled with light, or anything like that.  I had a moment’s glory that night, though.  I was certain I was here in this world because I couldn’t tolerate any other place.  

As for Hotel, who was in exactly the same shape I was and carrying just as much heroine, but who didn’t have to share it with his girlfriend, because he couldn’t find her that day: he took himself to a rooming house down at the end of Iowa Avenue, and he overdosed, too.  He went into a deep sleep, and to the others there he looked quite dead.

The people with him, all friends of ours, monitored his breathing by holding a pocket mirror under his nostrils from time to time, making sure that the points of mist appeared on the glass. But after a while they forgot about him, and his breath faded without anybody’s noticing.  He simply went under.  He died.  

I am still alive.”