The World According to Garp - John Irving

I really liked this book. If you read my thoughts along the way, you know that it did take me a little while to get into it.

I especially liked the way that Garp's writing was intertwined in the themes and storyline of the novel. I admit that at first it annoyed me, because I wanted to keep going on with the story, not read this character in the book's short story. But then as it got closer to the end of the book, I realized how important it was to infuse those stories into the novel because they revealed so much about Garp's character.

By the time you reach the end of the book it feels like a whole interconnected story - like the "narrator," who at the beginning seems so disconnected from the story, is Garp, because he has taken on so many of the literary qualities that we have learned about Garp and incorporated them into his own writing in the book.

The story itself is creative and very ironic. How Jenny Fields, a very independently thinking woman, accidentally becomes a feminist icon, and how Garp's distaste for the feminists and his mother's fame, ultimately lead to his own fame.

I have so much more to say, but I don't want to give away too much of the story - please read for yourselves.

I recommend this book!