I hope everyone has had a fabulous July! It’s time once again for my monthly book review, but this one has a slight twist to it. I’m going to be reviewing the books I read for my required summer reading! Every senior taking Honors World Lit at my school had to read Gabriel García Márquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold and for my second book I chose to read Charming Billy by Alice McDermott out of the choices I was given.
Out of the two books, I definitely liked Chronicle of a Death Foretold the best, but at times it was a tad confusing because the events are completely out of order. Luckily, I was able to keep most of it straight and the plot was quite interesting to me. I couldn’t wait to see the reasoning behind the actions of certain characters! The main plot discussed both how and why the main character of the book was murdered so it was gruesome at times, but the structure of the plot and the character descriptions were quite interesting.
I personally found Charming Billy to be a somewhat depressing book because the whole story discussed the sad life of Billy who had been a hardcore alcoholic. The book starts out at his funeral, because he died from drinking too much. Similarly to Chronicle of a Death Foretold, the events were completely thrown out of order. Charming Billy was more of a retrospective in comparison to the other book and due to this I found it very difficult to read and keep track of what time period they were discussing at any given time.
Out of the two books, I would not recommend Charming Billy because I found it to be sad and difficult to get through. I would recommend Chronicle of a Death Foretold to my friends who enjoy reading for their own enjoyment on a regular basis. I would not recommend it to someone who wouldn’t be willing to piece together the timeline of the plot because it would be an exercise in frustration for them.
What books did you read this July? Which was your favorite?
xoxo,
