Make me read it: Acclaimed fiction edition

~ Lory

Friends, it’s time once more to help me pick something from my shelves to read, helping me to clear my TBR and my conscience of these books that have been sitting around way too long. Whatever you choose, I promise to read it … sometimes it takes me a month or more, but I’ve always come through!

This month’s selection is from a number of acclaimed novels that have won prizes, been bestsellers, lauded by readers and critics alike … and yet I have not read them. Why? I don’t know, they all look good to me. But I need you to give me a little push and choose one.

Check out the covers and the Goodreads links below, and then vote in the poll. (If you skip this step and just comment, your vote might not get counted.) If you want to recommend more than one, please vote for your top choice but then explain your other choices in the comments.

Thank you so much for helping me with this difficult decision!

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34 thoughts on “Make me read it: Acclaimed fiction edition”

  2. Part-Time Indian is the only one I’ve read, and I give it top marks. The book gas been frequently banned in the US, which I usually see as a vote in its favor.

    1. Haha, agreed. Don’t forget to vote in the poll, I added that because sometimes it was hard for me to tell what people were actually recommending.

  3. The Sherman Alexie book was just “banned” at my local high school, meaning a teacher had assigned it for a class and parents succeeded in saying that it can’t be required reading for that class.

    1. Well, I hope that means the students will all the more take it up as unrequired reading.
      Reminds me of something I just read in Beverly Cleary’s memoir “A Girl from Yamhill,” she tells how a teacher in her junior college opined that any girl wearing red “deserved what she got, ” and the next day every girl who possessed something red wore it to school. Surely the best way to get teenagers to do something is to forbid them to do it?

  4. My book group read and loved Shadow on the Wind but I think it must have been while I was in law school and didn’t get around to some of the choices if exams were imminent. I say, give it a chance for all of us!

  5. Hmm, I went for the Sherman Alexie just from the blurb, and I’d fancy the Kehlmann myself if I was in the mood for it. I read The Shadow of the Wind when it came out, and while it drew me into old Barcelona, subsequent reads of his work just seems to cover the same kind of Gothick / magical realist ground. The Gaines sounds grim, while the Goodreads blurb for Less basically seems to have given away the whole plot — less Less is more!

      1. I’ve still got a Carlos Ruiz Zafón novel to read, though my last so-so review of his work got a fan boy — who thought the author was the best thing since sliced bread (as we Brits say) — very upset in the comments. But having a map of Barcelona spread out in front of me for one of his novels was great fun, even though it meant working out what the standard Spanish equivalents of modern Catalan streets were!

  6. As much as I enjoyed Shadow of the Wind when read back in the day, I’ll vote for the Alexie because I think it might be his best fiction book. (And it’s so often banned!)

  7. I tried to read Shadow of the Wind recently and struggled – I would probably have enjoyed it far more when I was in my teens. I did like the Sherman Alexie book when I read it about 8-10 years ago, but I know he has been accused of sexual harassment since, so I’m a bit conflicted about him now.

    1. I know, there are some very disturbing stories. I think I’d still like to read the book, as it’s been so influential, but without putting the author on a pedestal.

    2. wow interesting! I DNFed The Shadow of the Wind! After reading more than 60%. Something bothered me there, though I can’t remember what. Why did you struggle with it?

      1. It just bored me – felt baggy in style. Would certainly have enjoyed it more in my teens, when I liked big books regardless of whether big was necessary.

  10. Hmm, I have actually read two of these books and was frankly unimpressed by both. So I shall not vote The Shadow of the Wind or The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, haha. I’ve cast a vote for Measuring the World.

  11. I can’t vote! I’ve only read Shadow of the Wind, and while I thought it was fine, the way the author treats women (in the book I mean) is…disappointing, at best. The next two books are just depressing. If these books are accurate, nobody should move to Barcelona. Still, this is probably the best one.

    1. Did you vote in the poll? If so I don’t think it’s showing … this book is almost tied with the Alexie so that’s why i need to ask!

    1. That’s what I’ve heard. I’m quite intrigued to read it, although Shadow of the Wind is inching ahead at the moment.

  14. I have started reading The Shadow of the Wind at least four times now and have never finished it. Maybe you can read it for me and let me know how it goes! XD

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