Hillary

I read this because it beat A Tale for the Time Being for the Man Booker in 2013 and so I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. This is a long (800+) but relatively quick-moving read about a gold-mining community in New Zealand in the 1800s. Like a mystery, characters are slowly introduced and exposed, and a blurry image of what's going on clarifies throughout. Overall, I liked this but would have shelved it early on if it wasn't a book club assignment. I felt there are better things to read and the opportunity cost of reading something so long wasn't worth it for me.

I feel like I got tricked into reading a self-help book. Initially, I was loving the “if you don't feel well, don't smile” ideologies of Burroughs but after chapters like “How to be Thin” and advice on how to cope with a loved one's terminal illness, I was kind of over it. Does this make me a bad person? Maybe. I'm ready to get back to reading some literature.