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Psst…

Written by Kirsten on September 7th, 2010

… Anyone still here? :)

I apologize for the lengthy absence. My life got turned rather upside-down, in more ways than one, and I really hadn’t the heart for reading, or writing, or writing about reading, for a long time.

I’m back, though. At least physically. I probably won’t be diving right into daily posting, but then, that was never a strong suit of mine, anyway. I mostly just wanted to break the silence, and finally felt inspired to do so when I started reading The Perks of being a Wallflower last night.

For those of you who have read both Chbosky’s Wallflower and Loser by Jerry Spinelli, I think you’ll understand why the former brought the latter to mind within the first five pages. If you’ve read one but not the other, or not read either, FIX IT. Soon.

This also made me think about the book pairings we offered for Sync over on ABC – The Lottery with The Hunger Games. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland with The Looking Glass Wars. Treasure Island with Bloody Jack. What are some other read-alikes/listen-alikes you’ve particularly enjoyed? Do you prefer not to read them too closely so as not to judge one against another?  Do you seek out similar stories to, or stories deliberately based upon, ones you’ve read and enjoyed?

 

7 Comments so far ↓

  1. Nymeth says:

    Yep, still here :)

    Life has a way of getting in the way of blogging sometimes. I hope the upside-downness hasn’t been entirely of the bad kind.

    I loved Perks, but I’ve yet to read Stargirl. I really do need to fix that soon.

  2. Kirsten says:

    Oh Nymeth, so good to see you! Stargirl is on my list, as well.
    The upside-down-ness has been mostly hard and unhappy, but will all even out in time. Thanks for popping in! Getting back to others’ blogs is also on my list of things to do; I’ll be by soon, I promise :)

  3. Ronnica says:

    I always enjoy finding books like books I’ve liked before…but also ones that are just out there.

    In the past couple of weeks I read MOCKINGJAY and THE ASK AND THE ANSWER…SO many similarities! I know that there have been some others that I’ve noticed are similar, but nothing else is coming to mind.

  4. Kirsten says:

    Ronnica, I’d never heard of that one – thanks for the tip! Have you read Takami’s “Battle Royale”? I found it very similar to “The Hunger Games,” so much so that it tainted my first reading of HG. Anyone who loves Collins’s series should check it out.

  5. Dogearedcopy says:

    OK, I’ll play! I don’t usually pair reading like ABC did this summer with their YA Sync program; but I have been known to let one book recommend the next book. For instance, last summer, I read Wuthering Heights (by Emily Bronte) and then I was inspired to read Jane Eyre (by Charlotte Bronte…;) likewise Madame Bovary (by Gustave Flaubert) and Pere Goriot (by Honore de Balzac) and, from there Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (by Dai Sijie…) Sometimes though, I can hit a dead end, like when I read Great Expectations (by Charles Dickens.) After that, I didn’t “feel” another book recommendation.

    That said, I’ve recently become more interested in comparing Vietnam novels. I felt challenged by a recent tweet that argued that, while Matterhorn (by Karl Marlantes) was a great book, it wasn’t the best novel about Vietnam ever. I wanted to vehemently defend Matterhorn but couldn’t as Matterhorn was the only book I’ve ever read about ‘Nam! So I’ve started reading other books (starting with The Things They Carried (by Tim O’Brien)) and I plan on doing further comparative essays on my own blog.

    • Kirsten says:

      Very cool, Tanya! It’s funny, I’ve always been a reader, but what I read is fairly limited, at least with regard to genres – reading is my “TV,” so I tend toward books that feel like brain candy on at least some level. That could mean another re-read of the Harry Potter series, or it could be an anthology of gender-related non-fiction pieces. Twilight, or Dickens. It’s all relative :)
      Are you typically a fan of historical non-fiction, or are you reading the Vietnam books strictly for the purpose of fulfilling your self-challenge?

      • dogearedcopy says:

        I used to read a lot of historical fiction set during the Tudor period; but I’m pretty burnt out on it, as I am with Romance novels. I read across almost all other genres though! As for novels set in Vietnam, it’s a phase I’m going through. Matterhorn really got to me and I want “more,” and so the quest begins:-)

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