Summer Reading Reviews Part 2

Now that I am moved back in to college and my computer troubles are over I can commence with the blogging.  Classes start tomorrow so my summer reading is officially over and I want to update about the final books I read.
10.) The Things They Carried- Tim O'Brien
Why: I have heard so much about this book from friends that I decided it was finally time to read it. Plus being the war junkie that I am I thought I might like it.
Likes: The Thin Red Line is to war films what The Things They Carried is to war books. It was so much different than anything I've ever read about war. It was so deeply contemplative that it spoke not only about war, but about life and death and love and friendship in ways I've rarely thought about them.
Dislikes: At first the unreliable narrator bothered me. I wanted to know what was fact and what was fiction. However, the more I read, the less it mattered. There is no truth in war. I think that was the point O'Brien was trying to make.
Favorite Quote: "And in the end, of course, a true war story is never about war. It's about sunlight. It's about the special way that dawn spreads out on a river when you know you must cross the river and do things you are afraid to do. It's about love and memory. It's about sorry. It's about sisters who never write and people who never listen."
11.) Interview With the Vampire-Anne Rice
Why: I had seen the film while in New Orleans and loved it so much that I wanted to read the book.
Likes: Everything! Rice truly has a gift for story telling;  this novel pulled me and never let go. I found myself thinking about it even when I wasn't reading. It was dark, haunting, and mesmerizing-everything a vampire story should be. 
Dislikes: Not much. There were some slowish parts, but over all I loved it.
Favorite Quote: "It struck me suddenly what consolation it would be to know Satan, to look upon his face, no matter how terrible that countenance was, to know that I belonged to him totally, and thus put to rest forever the torment of this ignorance. To step through some veil that would forever separate me from all that I called human nature."
Also, a side note I saw the film before I read Interview With the Vampire and I love both separately. At first I was confused with the casting of Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise but the more I read, the more I could not see anyone else in those roles. I think Neil Jordan did a fantastic job of capturing the feeling of Rice's novel.