New Year, New 30 Day Book Challenge, Day 6

Day 6: A Book That Makes You Sad (well this should be fun....)

no, not sad like this...

Gianna:

Today we are going make you sad. More than normal, if we do it right! We are choosing books that make us sad (yes, Liz has a heart). [Libel is a felony, LaMorte.] 

sad like this!

We are going to have to do some major narrowing down here because any good book worth its weight should make you sad. No, not Nicholas Sparks sad, but truly deep, can’t-get-away-from-it sad.

We have to disqualify memoirs and biographies because where would we begin (or end)? In fact, let's disqualify any non fiction because the first two titles that come to mind are We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families by Philip Gourevitch, and Alex Kotlowitz’s There are No Children Here, a book which is (sadly) still relevant all these years later. Let’s not go down the non-fiction road. [Coward.]

too sad.

The perfect kind of sad

I will stick with fiction. Perhaps I will simply choose the saddest title and go with the classic, The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall. Wait, we just want sad not suicidal. The Road by McCarthy is too obvious so that’s out. I guess any John Steinbeck will do, but how to narrow his work down to saddest? Oh, geez, how about Anna Karenina? Yea, you’re right, it’s too obvious again. In fact lets just stay away from the Russians altogether.

Ok, I have decided that it has to be a book I read at least two years ago, that I still can’t think about without getting sad. I end up with a three-way tie: Dorothy Allison’s Bastard out of Carolina, The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, and Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates.

The "this could happen"
 kind of sad

"can't shake" kind of sad

All three are fantastic books…all three are incredibly sad. Who wants to read these back to back to back with me? Show of hands? Yea, me neither. [Um...Liz?]









Liz: 

Okay, let's face it, I would guess that 98% of the books I love are "sad" according to most people. Gianna already picked several of my favorites for today's post.  No problem.  Let's talk Joyce Carol Oates.  Has she ever written a "happy" book?  I certainly hope not.  

I've decided to pick one of my favorite JCO novels, and the one that follows the life of one of the most tragic lives of the celebrity-obsessed 20th Century.  Blonde fictionalizes Marilyn Monroe's troubled life, making her both a believable, intelligent woman of aspirations, and a woman abused, scorned, dismissed, and destroyed. People sometimes are shocked to learn that Monroe was a book lover, but since all of you reluctant readers of our little blog shouldn't struggle with the idea of sex symbols as bibliophiles.  People are often overwhelmed by my beauty.  Shut up.  Hollywood is beating me down. Elton John wrote a song about me ("Tiny Dancer," obviously).  Marilyn Monroe married a baseball player...and my future husband is Hunter Pence. Marilyn Monroe married Arthur Miller...and I like to sing showtunes to the cat.  The only question to ask now is who is sadder, Liz or MM?

You don't have to answer that question.