My Antonia - By Willa Cather

"My Antonia" by Willa Cather is something I had to read for school, which is exactly why it took me so long.

I'm not saying the book is bad. It read just fine. I think it was the fact that I kinda didn't care about any of the characters anymore that made it so long.

The story is about - shocker - Antonia, a foreign girl who comes to the country with her Bohemian family to start a life there. It's told from the eyes of Jim Burden, a boy sent to the same red countryside of Nebraska to live with his grandparents. Antonia with her olive skin and mysterious black eyes had always enchanted him even from childhood, so he tells her story, in full.

I don't happen to like life on the prairie stories. So I may be biased. But describing the hillsides and seasons and the colors the sun makes through the cornfields at a precise hour. . Sure, I'll take it, to understand the surroundings. But I can only take so much, and for so long. A page of description, or more, every different season? Come on. . Now other people can breeze this by and it's actually interesting. I just wasn't feeling it in this book. Again, it may be because life on the prairie is not my idea of an interesting enough life to read about.

So I'll just move on to the bullet points.

VIOLENCE/GORE: A character commits suicide in the story (I don't want to tell you who because it was sadly one of the most interesting parts of the story). He uses a shot gun, they explain how he did it, and the book describes how his blood froze in the winter air and they had to hack it to free him from the bed. They also point out pieces of hair and skin on the ceiling.

There's a story about an unfortunate wedding party that gets eaten by wolves too. (That would be the second interesting part of the story. . Sorry, I'm really not a creepy, I-like-death person. Those honestly were the parts I actually woke up at).

The main character gets beat up in one scene, too. But it's not really graphic.

LOVE/SEX: There's some creepy men, willing to take advantage of foreign and ignorant girls. Some vague kisses exchanged between characters. And one character gets pregnant without getting married, ruining her except for the beautiful baby she gets. But no real explanations or descriptions.

DRUGS/ALCOHOL: Honestly, I don't remember. There might be some pipe smoking and light drinking that I wasn't paying attention to, it being in the ranching days and such. But it isn't stressed.

And that'll be "My Antonia" by Willa Cather that I read for school. So glad I got it over with. It was getting painful.