summer vacation book review

I read three novels at the lake:

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince by JK Rowling

How I Spent My Summer Holidays by WO Mitchell

Wally by Greg Kramer

All three are coming-of-age "boy stories." All three were great and taken close together with some overlaps, very satisfying. They were also great vacation reads, taking me to places where I've never been.

Wally is set in Wales, London and Vancouver, all in theatres. It's about a guy who feels hurt from boyhood and spends his life chasing down something he can't even figure out what it is. The main character is pessimistic but loveable, and the novel is compelling because the story keeps taking him to the brink of happiness then veering off into worlds of self-destruction. Of the three, this was the most frustrating for me because I couldn't see eye-to-eye with any of the characters, but I was hooked by their complex and authentic personalities and predicaments and the world of the theatre in which the story is set.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation is set in a prairie town in the summer of 1924. It's every bit as sensational as Wally, in turns hilarious and heart-rending. I loved the characters and the portrayal of small town social life and morality. The main character, 12-year old Hugh is fabulous and real, and there are all kinds of interesting other people like King Motherwell, a man from the town who convinces Hugh and his friend Peter to help in shelter an escaped mental patient in a cave that the boys dig out on the prairie. There's one great scene where "Blind Jesus," another mental patient, wanders into a revival meeting baptism in the river. It's beautiful.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince is set in Hogwarts. JK Rowling got this one right, although I half-wish she'd write shorter sentences, only because I have read every one of the Harry Potter books aloud more than once (well, I just finished my first out-loud of the sixth) and it's exhausting to stay on top of the sentences and read them well. That small criticism aside, the second-to-last book in the series balances humour and drama beautifully and carries Harry, Ron and Hermione along as they grow into young adult wizards. The continuing conflict with Voldemort and the Death Eaters is very nicely developed and the promised death of a major character is shocky-chokey just as I thought it would be. JK Rowling has given up on trying to continuously recap what's happened in past volumes, which helps keep the pace brisk and prevented the book from being 1,000 pages long, no doubt. Oh yeah, there's lots of kissing, but that's appropriate as the wizards are in the thick of puberty. My only complaint is not enough Hagrid. He's been my favourite character since Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. If I got a tattoo, it would be of Hagrid.

I didn't set out to read three boy books but I did. I'm glad I did. I recommend them all. Don't read Wally if you're already depressed unless you want confirmation that you should be. Get ready to stay up late if you read Summer Holidays or Half Blood Prince. You won't want to put them down.

Now I'm reading Sylvanus Now by Donna Morrissey. We're passing it around the neighbourhood and it's my turn. I'm gobbling it up.

question: is binge-reading the best thing about summer vacation?

mompoet - turning pages