Digging to America

By Anne Tyler

Tyler won an Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for her novel Breathing Lessons, which is a novel I absolutely love. I would say that Tyler is right up there next to Jodi Picoult and Anita Shreve as one of my favorite novels. I waited for this book to come to our public library for almost a year. I know I should have bought it for myself, but with the economy the way it is, I'm having to real in my book budget.

This novel offers insight into two separate families connected through one night in an airport. One family is your average American family and the other is an Iranian-American family trying to assimilate into American Society. Both families are childless, and as such, they are waiting for their adoptive daughters to arrive on a plane from Korea. From their chance meeting in the airport to yearly "arrival" parties involving extended families, Tyler weaves a tale of these two families and the struggles we all face by trying to "fit in."

Similar Novels: Run by Ann Patchett and Bridge of Sighs by Richard Russo

Length: 277 pages

Copyright: 2006

Unwind

By Neal Shusterman

I honestly can't tell you if I was captivated by this book, or just really creeped out! I loved how it grabbed my attention in the first few pages and then it never let go. I wanted to stay up until 3:00 in the morning to finish reading this book and I haven't done that since college. The insert in the book says that Shusterman has written quite a few others and I'll be looking for those soon.

This novel is set in the not-so-distant future where parents are retroactively allowed to abort their children between the ages 13-18. This involves donating every part of their bodies because (in the future) all organs and tissue can be transplanted. This isn't considered heinous because technically, the children are still alive, just spread out so to say. The premise of this novel sounds awful, but the moral and storyline are amazing. This novel really made me think and it didn't need violence, sex, or bad language to keep the novel going.

Similar Novel: The Girl Who Owned a City by O.T. Nelson

Length: 335 pages

Copyright: 2007

Watership Down

by Richard Adams

I really expected something different when I started this novel. I read the summary on the back of the book and saw that it was a story about rabbits who needed a new home after humans started building a housing subdivision in their glen. I figured it would be something along the lines of Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh or Redwall. In a way, this novel was similar because it was full of action and kept my interest. However, the similarities ended there. In the other novels I mentioned, the animals were given human characteristics and could perform feats such as read, use electricity, or fight in wars. In Watership Down, Adams prides himself on the fact that the rabbits don't do anything an ordinary rabbit wouldn't do. Even with this handicap, Adams write an intriguing novel that kept me guessing to the very end.

Adams started this novel as a bedtime story for his children and decided to take it one step further. The plot follows a group of rabbits who flee from the home after it is invaded by humans. They travel far (a few miles for rabbits) in search of a new home and run into problems such as foxes, humans, paved roads, and a lack of females. Every time I thought the novel was wrapping up, a new problem occurred and kept me reading and guessing until the finale.

Similar Novels: Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh by Robert C. O'Brien and Redwall by Brian Jacques

Length: 496 pages

Copyright: 1972