Wow, Did I Read A Lot This Weekend

SO... this weekend, I finished Lamb and Cracking India

Christopher Moore's Lamb : The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal was absolutely hysterical. I really really liked it and am currently shouting its praises off every rooftop I can climb onto. But, I will warn you, if you offend easily when it comes to Jesus and the like, this is not the book for you. It's not overly offensive, but it might rub some people the wrong way. Biff does some offensive things. Jesus? Not so much, I mean, he's still Jesus. But seriously folks, READ THIS BOOK. Fantastic.

And fantastic in a different way was Bapsi Sidhwa's Cracking India : A Novel
This book was recently unsuccessfully challenged in DeLand, Florida, so of course, I went out and read it right way. Sidhwa tells the story of the partition of India through the eyes of young Lenny, who is a Parsee girl living in Lahore. This book is violent. There's talk of rape and sex. And oh, the violence. I can see why some people would want it banned, but it is no more violent than the actual events were. This was a hard book. It deals with this period of time with no background information. I really don't know much about this, so I had to look a lot of things up. The writing style, while beautiful and fitting, isn't an easy read. This would be a wonderful book to teach and read in school. It's dense and layered and the history is tragic, but so much history is. It also really puts current India/Pakistani border clashes and politics in perspective.

Also, Girl, Interrupted just survived a challenge in Orono, ME.