Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald

4/10

I finished reading this a couple nights ago. It's my third Fitzgerald book and my least favorite so far. It had a strong Hemingway feel to it with the story about expatriates lounging around all the time somehow never having to work but always having money to do whatever they want, drinking booze, and being otherwise awful humans. The book is still really well written because it's Fitzgerald. And the characters are very complex. And Fitzgerald's observations about people and their interactions are top notch. And there were some interesting moments here and there. But I just can't get past the boring storyline and extremely dislikable characters. This book was finished during Fitzgerald's heavy alcoholism and after dealing with some of his wife's mental health issues and it comes out pretty clearly on the page and has a strong autobiographical feel to it. It's a pretty dark book.

My Fitzgerald book rankings are as follows:

1. The Great Gatsby (one of the all-time greats)
2. This Side of Paradise (a very impressive first novel)
3. Tender is the Night (well-written, but not enjoyable at all)

Some random quotes:

"Obviously he had created his wife's world, and allowed her few liberties in it."

"Most people think everybody feels about them much more violently than they actually do - they think other people's opinions of them swing through great arcs of approval and disapproval."

"Trouble is when you're sober you don't want to see anybody, and when you're tight nobody wants to see you."

"Sometimes it is harder to deprive oneself of a pain than of a pleasure"

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling

9/10

Just finished reading this with Mallory tonight. Thus, this post has the disadvantage of being done without me having seen the movie. But I just couldn't wait because this book was awesome. It is both mine and Mallory's favorite Harry Potter book so far. And for me it's not even close.

This book had so much going for it and really was just about perfect. The plot twists were great and the foreshadowing was very well done. A lot of surprises that I didn't see coming. Although I must say that Mallory was right about Sirius Black from the very start. She's got a creative little mind and can guess the surprises pretty well sometimes.

This book gave us some further details about what led to Harry's parents' death. This book gives you the sense that J.K. is starting to slowly peel the layers and is just getting started with the meat of the Harry Potter saga. I especially liked that this book didn't quite wrap everything up as tidily as the other books. Peter Pettigrew escaped which looms ominous considering Professor Trelawney's prediction about Voldemort's servant bringing him back to power. And Sirius Black is in hiding but his name was never cleared of the crimes which sent him to Azkaban. More and more characters are being introduced who seem destined to have a part to play in future books.

I'm not typically a fan of using time travel as a sort of bail out to allow events to be changed, but this one was actually pretty well done, especially the part about Harry seeing himself perform the Petronus from afar while the Dementors were about to perform the Dementors kiss. My only complaint with the time travel thing is very small: There is no way that Professor McGonagall would have allowed Hermione to have this ultra-forbidden power to time travel just so she could take some extra classes. I guess J.K. had to plant the time travel seed earlier in the book somehow and there really wasn't any other way to do it, so oh well.

In conclusion, the story was excellent, exciting, creative and intense. I hope the next ones can be just as good.

Also, my Dad was in town and was able to read this book to the kids for three nights in a row, which they enjoyed. He always has been much better at doing cool voices of the characters than I can do.

And now for the token Dumbledore quote:

"You think the dead we loved ever truly leave us? You think that we don't recall them more clearly than ever in times of great trouble? Your father is alive in you, Harry, and shows himself most plainly when you have need of him."