WWW-Wednesday

This meme is currently hosted by Sam at Taking on a World of Words.

To take part all you need to do is answer the following questions:

• What are you currently reading?
• What did you recently finish reading?
• What do you think you’ll read next?

So here’s my 3 W’s for the week.

Recently Finished

Over the weekend, I read two books on a whim. They were not really on my TBR but I just picked them randomly.

Their Eyes were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurtson

I have watched the movie adaptation of this book but only got to read the book recently. I loved the book though I really struggled with the dialect used in the dialogues. It was a beautiful book but tragic.

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd

This has to be one of the best books that I have read recently. It tells the story of slavery and the fight towards its abolition. It had everything that I like in a book. I especially liked the fact that it has strong female protagonists.

Currently Reading

I am finally reading Beloved by Toni Morrison.

Warning: This next paragraph may contain spoilers about the book

It has been a rather weird experience. I don’t know  why I assumed that the book was about civil rights. Imagine my shock when the first thing I came across was the ghost of the baby haunting 124. The throwing of things around, the resurrection of Beloved are not things that I expected. Honestly speaking, I have always been scared of the supernatural especially  anything ghostly. Furthermore, for the first time in years I had a nightmare on Monday night and woke up too scared to go back to sleep. Beloved, the resurrected woman was the star in my nightmare although in the nightmare she looked and walked like the girl from the movie, The Ring. This is definitely not a book that I would have picked on my own. It was a challenge by my book club so I will read it to the end. I look forward to finding out how it goes. In addition, the book won some awards and is said to have been the book that contributed to Toni’s Nobel Prize award. So I am soldiering on. Hopefully, there will be no more nightmares about ghosts.

By the way, I read somewhere that the book was inspired by a real story about a mother who had to kill her baby to save her from slavery.

 

 

The Secret We’re Keeping by Rebecca Done

I stumbled upon this book. When I woke up from the nightmare mentioned above(the Beloved experience), I decided to read something light before sleeping again and this is the book that I found nearest to me. It is a book about a taboo topic, teacher-student relationship. I have never read anything like it so just taking time to see how the story unfolds.

Reading Next

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

It’s about time that I finely read this widely acclaimed classic.

So what’s on your WWW this week? Have you read any of the books on my post? Did Beloved give you nightmares? Share the links to your WWW posts and I will definitely pay you a visit and see what you have been up to.

T5W: Books with Hard Topics

#T5W

Top 5 Wednesday is a weekly meme created by Lainey. Every week, readers get a new topic to discuss and list  5 books (or whatever is specified) that relate to that topic! If you’re interested in joining, you should come join us at the Goodreads group!

 

Books with hard topics tend to stay with you long after you turn the last page. They haunt you and confront you with issues that you wish never existed in the first place. My choices for this week entails books with different forms of sexual abuse especially where minors were involved.

The Room by Emma Donoghue- This was a tough one. A woman was kidnapped and held as a sex slave for seven years. She had a son as a result of the rape. Mother and son end up living in the room where they are imprisoned and the rape goes on despite the presence of the little boy in the room. This story was devastating. Furthermore, it is inspired by true events(Josef Fritz case) hence even more  horrific. You can read my full review here.

 

Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold- The protagonist was only 14 years old when she was raped and murdered. It was heartbreaking reading about the incident and what happened to Susie. I was disgusted by the rapist. Susie’s life was cut short in such a tragic manner. Child abuse is always such a hard topic. My review of the Lovely Bones is here.

I recently bought Lucky by the same author and can’t wait to read it. Apparently, Lovely Bones was inspired by Alice’s own experiences as a child.

I know why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou- This is an inspiring memoir but truly heartbreaking. At 8 years old, Maya is raped by her mother’s boyfriend. The description of the rape was difficult to read. Maya talks about the unimaginable pain that she went through during the ordeal. Truly horrifying.

 

 

I am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced by Nujood Ali and Delphine Minoui- This is a story about a 10 year old bride forcefully married off by her father to an older man. The agony that Nujood went through is unimaginable. The repeated rape by her husband and torture by her mother in law was horrific. It was all too much; I can’t imagine how she went through all that. She was the world’s youngest divorcee although sadly, there are other younger brides forced into marriage before the age of ten. I reviewed this book last month.

 

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini- Second time I am mentioning this book in T5W this month. It is the only book that I remember that had a male character who was sexually abused. Hassan was raped by bully when he was young. Shockingly, the bully grew up and made Hassan’s young son his sex slave. It was all too heartbreaking. Another book that had a male character going through child abuse was Lost Boy by Dave Pelzer although this time, the abuser was his mother. You can read my review of Lost Boy here. I also did a review of Kite Runner here.

I am currently reading This Secret We’re Keeping by Rebecca Done. Its about a teacher-pupil relationship, a taboo topic of course, I would have included the book in this list but I have just started reading.

Have you read any of these books? Which books made it to your list this week? Don’t be shy, Share your links and I will pay your blogs a visit.

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