I didn’t like learning how utterly “out-of-shape” I am for reading big books! The size books I used to devour routinely are now almost beyond me? No! Please No! The 300 page limit of most novels today often seems taxing now after 9 years of commuting with audio books.This is not going to be a review. I am still “digesting” this books weeks later.(Her art choices for the club posts were equally “genius.”)įinally I loved that the Guardian, once again nailed it, this is so much more than a “Soviet Hogwarts.” Brilliant! You can read their full review here. Such marvelous prose! I also loved having my friend Sylvia’s Gray House Book Club posts to help me process all that I read. You see? The story is so vivid because both the writing and the translation into English are both “genius.” The wordsmith who translated this into English as deserving of an award as the author. And after the fight is over they’d listen to more music and eat again, with even more delight. Rats suffer from constipation but they’d still eat anything anytime. It is today they need that extra piece of toast, it’s today they need that new song, it’s today they need to take the only thing that’s on their mind and scrawl it in huge letters on the bathroom wall. Young Rats are not concerned about tomorrow. Not in years, but in questions he asks himself. They dye their hair and alter their pants with multicolored patches. They are always hostile, always hungry, always covered in spots from the sweets they consume to cheat hunger. Here is one great quote I shared in an earlier post: I loved that as much as a the vividness of the setting and the masterfulness of the story telling. The legendary leaders, their raisons d’etra, the motives of their followers all could be used in a political theory course as well as a literature course.

Their struggle to come to grips with, understand and conquer the seen and unseen barriers in their life reminded me of epics in folklore in their determination.

There were all types of “students” in this house–those I could fully relate to, those I could tolerate and those I couldn’t stand. I loved the way this world simply became REAL as I read it.

My vocabulary for books that blur the lines between “regular” fiction and fantasy is too limited to give you a good idea of all that is superbly packed into this book.Ī school/home for disabled students is a world unto itself with tribes, folk lore, fights, loves and much, much more. There is no way I can do justice to a book I am still trying to fully understand! But so many of the people who come here to read Top Ten Tuesday or Top 5 Wednesdayposts LOVE this kind of book and may not have heard of it, so I’m posting what I can to get the word out on how amazing it is.

The Gray House by Mariam Petrosyan