Earlier this year, I did a reading challenge for my YouTube channel all about rereading books I studied in high school, and I thought I’d review them on my blog too. This is the second in this mini-series – the first review was Holes by Louis Sachar, so head over and read that too if you’re interested!
These were all the books I chose for my mini reading challenge:
- Holes by Louis Sachar
- Room Thirteen by Robert Swindells
- Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
- Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman
If you want to watch my full reading vlog where I discuss the books as I read them, you can watch it below! It’s long, so get yourself comfortable… or scroll down to read the next in my series of reviews. This post will be focusing on two books: Room 13 by Robert Swindells, and Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck.
Room 13 by Robert Swindells
Video timestamp: 26:49
This was a very weird book. I remember we didn’t have the best time reading it in school because we read it with a teacher nobody liked very much, so I didn’t retain a lot of what we actually read. I couldn’t remember anything at all about this book going into it except a memory of everyone laughing at a part of the book where the word “knob” was used several times. (Is that just British humour?)
It’s actually the story of a class of children who go on a school trip to Whitby, an English seaside town. They stay in a creepy hotel where room 13 seems to be mysteriously missing: there’s room 12 and 14, but no room 13. All that’s there is a locked cupboard. But when a girl is seen sleepwalking to the cupboard and walking right inside, appearing again the next morning looking pale and ill, it sets a group of children on a mission to find out what’s living inside room 13, and what’s making their classmate look so awful.
It’s supposed to be a children’s horror story, but it just doesn’t seem very scary. It might be because I’m a 25-year-old woman reading a book aimed at children, but it’s mostly mundane stuff like the kids going for a walk along the cliffs and visiting a museum, and then the whole “scary” part of the story happens literally within one page. And it was all very weird.
I don’t even really have a great deal to say about this one. I definitely wasn’t a fan.
Read more & buy the book: Goodreads / Waterstones / Amazon / Book Depository
Note: These are affiliate links, meaning if you buy a book through one of these links, I get a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thanks for supporting Wonderfully Bookish!
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Video timestamp: 33:54
This was definitely one that I could remember very well. Not as well as Holes, because I only reread Holes a couple of years ago; but for some reason, Of Mice and Men is one of those books that I only read in school, but it stuck in my brain forever. There were a few small details I’d forgotten, but they came flooding back as soon as I read it again.
If you’re one of the probably small minority of English-speaking people who didn’t have to read Of Mice and Men in school, it’s about two men called George and Lennie who travel around California, finding work on ranches. George and Lennie have a dream to own their own ranch one day, and this dream is what gets them by – but Lennie’s mistakes keep making them have to move on to a new ranch. They think they’ve found a good one, until Lennie does unforgivable which changes everything.
This book has possibly one of the biggest twist endings I’ve read. It’s the kind of ending I wish I could forget and read again for the first time. I remember being in school and being so shocked that a book could end this way. If you haven’t read it, I won’t spoil it for you – but make sure you have a tissue handy.
This isn’t particularly a book I’d say I enjoyed reading, as much; it was more just a positive experience because of the nostalgia of reading it in school, and I remember liking learning about it. Reading it now, in 2020, brings up some things that definitely aren’t appropriate today, especially some of the language used (see my video for an example) and the negative, promiscuous representation of the only female character in the whole story. (But I’ll let it off the hook considering it was written in 1937.)
This is definitely a book that everyone needs to read, even just to experience the shocking twist of fate at the end. If you read it with children it might bring up a few awkward questions about the uncomfortable language, but it’s well worth a read.
Read more & buy the book: Goodreads / Waterstones / Amazon / Book Depository
Note: These are affiliate links, meaning if you buy a book through one of these links, I get a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thanks for supporting Wonderfully Bookish!
