The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

I never buy books at a retail store. Let's be honest. They are crazy overpriced. I do love to be in them, however. The truth is I never get to go. If I do, I have three girls in tow and I and can usually be found reading Beatrix Potter. One day around Christmas, my man and I ventured into Barnes and Noble while my mom watched the children. All the grown-up books, y'all. Swoon. I came across a table of classics for sale and I had never read The Sun Also Rises. I decided I would bring a little Hemingway home with me. 

I have been reading it in between the other books I read each week (I feel as though I just wrote a truly nerdy statement). Let's just say I had a love/hate relationship with ol' Ernest. I felt the whole time that I was reading a book about nothing. These people are basically bar hopping the entire time. How is that even a book? They do take one jaunt down to watch the bulls run at Pamplona (a favorite pastime of Hemingway himself). I kept feeling like I was bored, but I noticed a little magic in his writing. Even though I felt like I was following one superficial story after another, I realized that our author was slowly releasing very small deep tidbits about the people. At the end of the book, I found myself caring about the characters. Somehow, he allows his reader to peer into the deep and tormented souls of his characters with short sentences. Did the book move me to tears or deeply stir my soul? No. It did do what every great book does, draw the heart to care. Well written characters help you love people in many various forms. Hemingway did that for me. Kudos Ernest. 

Hemingway won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954. He was referred to as the author of the lost generation. You can read more about Ernest Hemingway here.