Over the summer I decided to pick to read "The Memory Keeper's Daughter" by Kim Edwards as my first choice. I would say that this book is Literary Fiction. and Commercial Fiction. As I started reading, right away I noticed that the scenes were very descriptive with alot of focus on detail. "A few flakes first, in the dull gray late-afternoon sky, and then wind-driven swirls and eddies around the edges of their wide front porch"(Edwards). As the novel opens up, it goes into imagery of how the night right before her labor was like. The descriptive sentences throughout the novel, had an impact on the way the overall scene turned out to be like. Literary novels are paced more slowly and like to explore the mind and soul. This book for sure had me analyzing ever page with meaning. Right from the part when the Doctor (husband) decided to lie to his wife and tell her that the baby girl of their's had died during birth, I began to wonder why he did what he did. His decision that night affects the rest of the characters lives' over the succeeding decades. Since the rest of the book describes year by year how each character lives it goes in a slow pace and therefore is considered to be Literary Fiction. For example, "...something he kept hidden, some experience or expectation or dream too private to share"(Edwards). Because he decided to hide a secret for the rest of his life, his wife and his son felt as if something was missing their whole lives. The book made me analyze why certain characters acted the way they did. The wife, Norah, even turned to cheating in order to escape her loneliness and depression of having lost a child. The son, grew up as if his other half was gone. The whole family was affected by the Doctor's decision. The personal innner workings of the characters such as the Doctor himself, keep the book moving forward. This book had an entertaining plot (commercial)- the whole time I was wondering will his wife find out about the secret and how? And at the same time the book contained a deeper character exploration (literary).
The second novel I read over the summer was called "Something Blue" by Emily Giffin. This novel picks up where "Something Borrowed" left off. This one however is from Darcy's point of view and not her best friends, as it was in the first book. After becoming pregnant, and wanting to start fresh Darcy gets in touch with her childhood friend, Ethan, and stays with him in London.The novel is commerical to me because it describes her personal journey and how she evolves from a selfish person to someone who can stay in a real relationship, this time. “Anxiety was not an emotion I could ever remember feeling when I went out in New York, and I wondered why tonight felt so different. Maybe it was because I no longer had a boyfriend or fiance. I suddenly recognized that there was safety in having someone, as well as a lack of pressure to shine. Ironically, this had cultivated a certain free-spiritedness that had, in turn, allowed me to be the life of the party and hoard the affection of additional men....But that had all changed. I didn't have a boyfriend, a perfect figure, or alcohol-induced outrageousness to fall back on” (Giffin). As shown, this text was very straight to the point, and didn't really have a deep analysis on why certain characters were how they were. Darcy said what she wanted to say and I did not have to stop and think on why she did what she did. It was a relaxing novel I enjoyed and didn't have to think much about while reading it. Overall though, this novel was a warm, and engaging text that showed how friendship and love can change us all.
