book 85

ariel gore's atlas of the human heart
aimee recommended this book to me a few weeks ago, and i finally picked my ordered copy up today and pretty much read it straight through. basically, it's a memoir of gore's teen years, where she picked up and went to china, and then traveled the world. it's all very heart-wrenching and beautiful and hard. my only complaint is that occasionally she'll, like, define words (the derivation of "free" comes up a few times). is this to highlight her youthful thoughts? it does read like a bad freshman comp paper, where they have to write about materialism or something, and their introductions will all say, "what is materialism? webster's dictionary defines materialism as . . . "

but otherwise, it's really a riveting story, and sort of horrifying because it's true. when aimee recommended it, she said she thought it was a good book about turning points, and would be a good read for someone starting something new in life. i think this is an accurate assessment.