Goat -- Brad Land

This book was interesting, but in all reality I wasn't actually all that surprised by the violence of the fraternity hazing. I had read about it before and heard about it before so I wasn't completely shocked. It's amazing how cruel some people can be to each other. There were some cringes inducing moments -- mostly for me during the first part of the book, not the fraternity part. I think what was the saddest part of this book was the internal struggle Land went through and also the relationship with his brother. That part was harder to take than the actual descriptions of the beatings and hazing. Overall a pretty good memoir. Quick read and kept my attention.

The Joy Luck Club

I had been meaning to read this book (along with other Amy Tan) for a long time. We are going to be reading parts of this book in our Advanced ESL class this summer, so I thought it would be a perfect time to ready it. I loved this book. It was so beautifully written. All of the stories tied together wonderfully. I liked how each story could also be read seperately also and no other context was needed. Usually I am not a huge short story fan, but this was just fantastic. In my copy of the book it has a chart listing the mothers and the daughters and that helped tie everything together for me. I also loved how the first story and the last story just tied the whole book together in such a wonderful way.