Sharon > Recent Status Updates

I read this for the first time 30 years ago. Then it struck me as dry and unending. Now I admire it's simplicity and clarity.

I have a lot of impressions. The language is one pastors still used sometimes in my youth, though none do now. But the largest impression one me now is the lack of branding. This reads like good counsel from a wise man, not trademarked materia from an influencer.

It's just so long. So, so long.

Myrer's exceptional talent as a writer is for dialogue. He has clearly met many different kinds of people and he remembers how they talk. These characters sound real. I've heard people who talk like this or say these things.

But that includes the speechifying of pompous middle-aged men. It includes how officers talk when their subordinates have to listen.

And it's so long.

It's funny how I end up reading books in themes, even when I don't plan it. I am reading this at the same time as Rebecca West's Black Lamb and Grey Falcon. Both books are written by someone who fell in love with another culture and somehow found something for their soul there that they did not find in their culture of origin.

Only a third through the first book, but why is everyone not talking about this? Best YA dystopia I've read since Hunger Games.

This book prints the Hebrew words backwards so they are gibberish. Not a promising start.

An unexpected little gem. A fantasy for the gentle-hearted child who wants imagination without peril.