Saturday, January 12, 2008

BAM Challenge #1 - The Time it Takes to Fall

My reading for the first month of the Book a Month Challenge is done. The theme chosen for this month was Time.

Basic Information:
The Time it Takes To Fall

Margaret Lazarus Dean.
Simon & Shuster, 2007
General Fiction, Adult

I didn't expect to enjoy this as much as I did - I tend to read a lot more science fiction and fantasy than general fiction, and I specifically wanted to break out of that with this one, though yes, I did stay in the fiction realm.

I ended up choosing this one over others because a)MPOW had a copy available and b)one of the subject headings was Challenger(Spacecraft) --Accidents --Fiction. I remember the Challenger accident very vividly, and the idea of fiction with it as a central theme intrigued me. What I got was something different, but still good. I got a central character who was just about the same age I was when Challenger exploded, which may have made this novel resonate just a bit more with me. This novel doesn't look at what it was like to be a child of the 80's, with all the cliches that includes. Instead, it's the story of change - and the ways Dolores & the others in her family deals with the changes. The space program and Challenger disaster frame the novel, but don't become overwhelming. While the main character may be a young teen girl, this is not a YA novel. Instead, it's a good read for adults who remember the excitement of the shuttle program and that awful day that Challenger was just gone.

1 comment:

Chantele said...

I loved this book too. It was particularly interesting to me being from TX. I graduated from HS in 1986 and remember watching the Challenger explode at school on tv with my class.
That fall my college roommate was from Clearlake, it had a particularly large impact on her since many of her classmates parents worked at NASA and one of their fathers was on the shuttle.