I finally finished student teaching last week Wednesday. It was probably the most tiring, health-draining, emotionally exhausting few months I've ever had in my entire existence. Yet at the same time, it was also extremely emotionally rewarding and bittersweet. Since finishing student teaching, my priority has been to try and get well again, as my health has suffered and I'm currently the weakest that I've probably ever been. It also doesn't help that the gym I usually go to is closed for renovations, and so I am also deprived of that activity to help gain my strength back.
Last week I finally finished A Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich. I had originally started the book over a week ago, when I started teaching the unit on Westward Expansion to the 8th Graders. I ended up being so ill and tired that I couldn't finish the book until after student teaching ended, because all I could do when I got home was nap and hope I didn't get more ill. Anyway, A Plague of Doves turned out to be a very different book from The Round House, which threw me off a little. A Plague of Doves was a lot more nuanced, and read like a study about the overlapping lives of the Native Americans and the white settlers, and their respective descendants. Unlike The Round House where there were clear villains, most of the characters in A Plague of Doves were presented as figures in different shades of grey morality - human and relatable.
Since then, I have also finished two more books, The Wild Inside by Christine Carbo and Strike Your Heart by Amelie Nothomb. The Wild Inside is part of a series of mystery thriller books set in Glacier National Park in Montana, which I enjoy for its unusual setting, and Strike Your Heart is a slim novella that I received as part of sponsoring something on Kickstarter. Clocking in at 135 pages with a medium sized font, I ended up finishing Strike Your Heart in less than 12 hours after picking it up last night, and it definitely stands out as one of the more unusual books that I've read in a long time. A simple and sparsely written prose about the damaging effects of selfish motherhood, Strike Your Heart is able to paint complex portraits of emotions with very little words. It reminded me a little of Edeet Ravel's The Cat.
Last week I finally finished A Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich. I had originally started the book over a week ago, when I started teaching the unit on Westward Expansion to the 8th Graders. I ended up being so ill and tired that I couldn't finish the book until after student teaching ended, because all I could do when I got home was nap and hope I didn't get more ill. Anyway, A Plague of Doves turned out to be a very different book from The Round House, which threw me off a little. A Plague of Doves was a lot more nuanced, and read like a study about the overlapping lives of the Native Americans and the white settlers, and their respective descendants. Unlike The Round House where there were clear villains, most of the characters in A Plague of Doves were presented as figures in different shades of grey morality - human and relatable.
Since then, I have also finished two more books, The Wild Inside by Christine Carbo and Strike Your Heart by Amelie Nothomb. The Wild Inside is part of a series of mystery thriller books set in Glacier National Park in Montana, which I enjoy for its unusual setting, and Strike Your Heart is a slim novella that I received as part of sponsoring something on Kickstarter. Clocking in at 135 pages with a medium sized font, I ended up finishing Strike Your Heart in less than 12 hours after picking it up last night, and it definitely stands out as one of the more unusual books that I've read in a long time. A simple and sparsely written prose about the damaging effects of selfish motherhood, Strike Your Heart is able to paint complex portraits of emotions with very little words. It reminded me a little of Edeet Ravel's The Cat.
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