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Summary:
he Handmaid's Tale, a best-selling book first published in 1985, was marketed as a  sci-fi horror story. After all, it takes place in a scary vision of a dystopian future, kind of like Brave New World, 1984, or even The Hunger Games. In this future, nearly all the women have become infertile, so the few who can still have babies have been rounded up, brainwashed, and assigned to powerful men in a twisted attempt to restore the human race. The Handmaid's Tale won author Margaret Atwood some seriously major awards, including the 1986 Los Angeles Times Best Fiction Award, the 1987 Arthur C. Clarke Award for Best Science Fiction, and a nomination for the Booker Prize.

But while The Handmaid's Tale has gotten tons of praise as a work of science fiction, Atwood has claimed that this book is actually something else completely. She calls it "speculative" fiction instead, which has caused some problems with sci-fi fans. (For more on this, see "Genre.")

But whether you think the distinction is necessary or arbitrary, The Handmaid's Tale is now considered standard—even required—reading, appreciated both by the public and critics. It received glowing sound bites from most major newspapers and sat on the New York Times best-seller list for a good stretch.

It seems that whether you like science fiction or not, or whether you call this speculative fiction or not, The Handmaid's Tale has something to offer readers of all stripes.
Source:
Shmoop Editorial Team. "The Handmaid's Tale." Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 20 Mar. 2017.

My Opinion:
Although itself might be a great choice, it is a bit too horrifying for me right now. I don't want to read dystopian stories while preparing for AP exams.

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Summary:
Dexter County, Maine, and specifically the town of Empire Falls, has seen better days, and for decades, in fact, only a succession from bad to worse. One by one, its logging and textile enterprises have gone belly-up, and the once vast holdings of the Whiting clan (presided over by the last scion's widow) now mostly amount to decrepit real estate. The working classes, meanwhile, continue to eke out whatever meager promise isn't already boarded up.

Miles Roby gazes over this ruined kingdom from the Empire Grill, an opportunity of his youth that has become the albatross of his daily and future life. Called back from college and set to work by family obligations-his mother ailing, his father a loose cannon-Miles never left home again. Even so, his own obligations are manifold: a pending divorce; a troubled younger brother; and, not least, a peculiar partnership in the failing grill with none other than Mrs. Whiting. All of these, though, are offset by his daughter, Tick, whom he guides gently and proudly through the tribulations of adolescence.

A decent man encircled by history and dreams, by echoing churches and abandoned mills, by the comforts and feuds provided by lifelong friends and neighbors, Miles is also a patient, knowing guide to the rich, hardscrabble nature of Empire Falls: fathers and sons and daughters, living and dead, rich and poor alike. Shot through with the mysteries of generations and the shattering visitations of the nation at large, it is a social novel of panoramic ambition, yet at the same time achingly personal. In the end, Empire Falls reveals our worst and best instincts, both our most appalling nightmares and our simplest hopes, with all the vision, grace and humanity of truly epic storytelling.

Source: http://www.pulitzer.org/winners/richard-russo

My Opinion:
This is a little lovely story about a family going through a hard time of life, raveling the simplest instinct of human beings. I may consider this warm story.

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Summary:
arGender stereotypes are a funny thing (and by funny, we mean borderline infuriating). Who decided that girls should wear pink and boys should play with trucks? What if a boy wants to play with pink? Or a girl wants to wear a truck? Okay, that's not a good analogy, but you get what we mean. When you live in a world full of gender stereotypes, what can you do to defy and redefine them?

This is the dilemma facing Cal Stephanides in Jeffrey Eugenides's epic novel Middlesex. Cal is born genetically male, but is raised female because his doctor thought he was a girl. (For all you med students out there who want to get technical, that means the doctor thought his pee-pee was a hoo-hoo.)

Middlesex, being the modern-day Greek comic-tragedy that it is, isn't just about Cal though. It's about Cal's parents and grandparents, and all the events of the world—war, riots, strife, poverty and prosperity—that made them who they are.

Eugenides, author of The Virgin Suicides and The Marriage Plot, won the Pulitzer for fiction in 2003. Middlesex was on tons of "Best Books of 2002" lists, and the finalist for more awards than we can count. And, you know, Oprah. (Need we say more?) Eugenides might have even won Miss America that year, it's hard to recall.

The book wasn't without controversy, though. (Eugenides, like Eminem, is from Detroit, and like Eminem, we need a little controversy.) Some critics complained about the fact that Cal's intersex genitals are the result of incest, and that Cal is sometimes compared to mythological monsters. We'd like to give you a heads up that the pronoun we use to refer to Cal's character shifts according to the gender identity he inhabits at the time he is referring to. Without taking sides, we'd also like to say that we think the Minotaur is pretty bad-ass.

Middlesex isn't just steeped with Greek mythology and ambiguous genitalia (as though you need more than that in life), but it also spans generations: starting in Greece, crossing the Atlantic, settling in Detroit at the beginning of the age of Ford Motors, following along until Detroit is burned during race riots, and ending in San Francisco at the height of the sexual revolution. This book is a freaking five hundred page time machine.

Whether you're male or female or identify in a different way, a native born American or an immigrant, religious or pagan, gay or straight, happy or sad, Middlesex has a little bit of something for everyone. Get ready for a wild ride through time.
Source:
Shmoop Editorial Team. "Middlesex." Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 20 Mar. 2017.

My opinion:
I am really interested in what it describes in the book. It views the world in a completely new perspective that I have never thought about, and I am looking forward to read through Cal's experience. I may probably choose this book.

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Summary:
Delaney Mossbacher and Cándido Rincón live totally different lives, but share Topanga Canyon as their home. Delaney is a middle-class liberal humanist and Cándido is a homeless illegal Mexican immigrant. The novel begins with Delaney unexpectedly hitting Cándido with his car. The accident really startles Delaney, but instead of making sure Cándido gets proper medical attention, Delaney gives him 20 dollars and hopes he will disappear from his life. Delaney does not choose to call the police because he does not want to blemish his perfect driving record and Cándido chooses not to seek medical care because he is afraid of being deported. The men part ways; however this unfortunate car accident causes Cándido and Delaney’s lives to be influenced by one another from that point on.

After the accident Delaney tries to put it behind him and get back to his life, but problems seem to keep appearing. Delaney lives in a gated community called Arroyo Blanco, with others who are well-off like his family. Every morning he makes breakfast for his stepson Jordan and his work obsessive wife, Kyra, and then he spends the afternoon writing his column for the magazine, Wide Open Spaces. However, one morning, a few days after Delaney’s accident, his morning routine is disturbed by a coyote that enters their backyard and murders one of their dogs. This causes Delaney to become furious, because he blames it on his neighbors leaving food out which causes coyotes and other wild animals to come to Arroyo Blanco. Delaney tries to voice his opinion to the other residents in the community at their town hall meetings, but the rest of the community is focused on building a wall around their entire estate to keep out immigrants who they believe will potentially become thieves and criminals.

Meanwhile while Delaney and his family are trying to recover from the loss of their pet, Cándido is trying to recover from loss of consciousness, and from being badly injured from the car accident. He is not able to find work, because he cannot walk or use his arm. He cannot provide for his seventeen year old wife, América, who is pregnant, or find them a home, so they can stop camping out in the Topanga Canyon. While Candido is recovering, América is trying to find work to keep them alive, all while avoiding anyone who would try to get her husband and herself deported back to Mexico. She goes to the labor exchange day after day and after a few unsuccessful attempts, she finds work. Cándido feels like less of a man since his wife has to provide for him, but he realizes there is nothing he can do because of his injuries. As time proceeds, Cándido’s injuries begin to heal, and now he and America are both working, and just as they have saved up a little money, more problems occur. Cándido is robbed while they are in the city one night and America is robbed and raped while in the canyon one evening. Cándido and America are once again poor, homeless, and with a baby coming soon.

As Thanksgiving approaches, situations for both couples seem to be improving, Delaney and his family are preparing Thanksgiving dinner and attend a party at a neighbor’s house, while Cándido and América are given a turkey and couldn’t be more excited to have food. But once again trouble comes. While cooking the turkey in the canyon, Cándido starts a fire and it spreads rapidly. He and America are able to escape, but now Delaney, his family, and the rest of Arroyo Blanco find themselves having to evacuate their homes as well. Thanksgiving is ruined.

Through all the devastating chaos, América gives birth to a daughter. Cándido builds a shed for them for shelter. One afternoon Delaney spots Cándido, and has a strong feeling the fire had something to do with him. Delaney goes home and gets his gun, and that evening he explores the canyon until he finds Cándido, América, and their daughter in the shed. Just as Delaney is preparing to confront Cándido about the fire, a landslide knocks the shed over and they all end up in the river. Cándido and América manage to save themselves and although it is not stated in the text it is obvious that their baby daughter has drowned. Delaney was so furious with Cándido and so tired of him causing chaos in his life that he planned to call the cops on him that evening. However the novel ends with Cándido showing kindness, helping to pull Delaney out of the river.

Source:
https://tcboyletortillacurtain.wordpress.com/summary/

My Opinion:
This is an interesting story about the relationship between the poor and the rich. I like the development very much. However, its perspective is not as unique as middlesex.

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Summary:

In Cold Blood is a non-fiction novel[1] by American author Truman Capote, first published in 1966; it details the 1959 murders of four members of the Herbert Clutter family in the small farming community of Holcomb, Kansas.

When Capote learned of the quadruple murder, before the killers were captured, he decided to travel to Kansas and write about the crime. He was accompanied by his childhood friend and fellow author Harper Lee, and together they interviewed local residents and investigators assigned to the case and took thousands of pages of notes. The killers, Richard "Dick" Hickock and Perry Smith, were arrested six weeks after the murders and later executed by the state of Kansas, and Capote ultimately spent six years working on the book. When finally published, In Cold Blood was an instant success, and today is the second-biggest-selling true crime book in publishing history, behind Vincent Bugliosi's 1974 book Helter Skelter about the Charles Manson murders.[citation needed]

Some critics consider Capote's work the original non-fiction novel, though other writers had already explored the genre, such as Rodolfo Walsh in Operación Masacre (1957). It has been especially lauded for its eloquent prose, extensive detail, and simultaneous triple narrative, which describes the lives of the murderers, the victims, and other members of the rural community in alternating sequences. The psychologies and backgrounds of Hickock and Smith are given special attention, as well as the complex relationship that existed between them during and after the murders. In Cold Blood is regarded by critics as a pioneering work in the true crime genre, though Capote was disappointed that the book failed to win the Pulitzer Prize.[2] Critics have also noted that parts of the book, including important details, differ from the real events.[3]
Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Cold_Blood

My Opinion:
One of the original non-fiction novels, read description of a murder. The topic is interesting but the book itself is too bloody for me.

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summary:

This Side of Paradise, Fitzgerald’s first novel, made him an enormously successful popular author when he was only twenty-three years old. The combination of romanticism and realism, mingled with a fresh and—for the time—sometimes startling depiction of college life, caught the attention of the reading public and made the novel representative of an entire generation.

This Side of Paradise is loose and episodic, a collection of vivid scenes which do not fuse into a well-structured novel. It is divided into two sections: “The Romantic Egotist” (the title of the novel’s first draft) and “The Education of a Personage.”

The first takes Amory Blame from his childhood through his years at Princeton University and concerns his intellectual and moral development.

Convinced that he has a great, if obscure, destiny, Amory is greatly influenced by a Catholic priest, Father Darcy, who awakens him to the reality and power of evil. Darcy is based upon Father Sigourney Fay, who exerted a comparable influence on Fitzgerald. In the novel, this moral and spiritual education is dramatized by incidents that appear supernatural, as when Amory is pursued by a diabolic figure through the streets of New York. Perhaps a remnant of Father Fay’s moralism, the sense of sin and the power of sex are mixed in Amory’s mind in an inextricable, if often confusing fashion.

The second section is restricted to one year, 1919, and concentrates on Amory’s character development, which it traces by following his adventures after service in World War I. As Fitzgerald had no experience of combat, he wisely omitted any actual description of Amory in the conflict. In book 2, Amory’s courtship of Rosalind Connage is ended after the sudden loss of his family fortune.

Source:
https://www.enotes.com/topics/this-side

My Opinion:
A moderate choice, a continuation of The Great Gatsby. If I don't have other choices, I would choose this. But apparently I have others.

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Summary: Allow us to reveal the recipe for a literary juggernaut. Mix together one part autobiography, one part romance, and one part adventure. Simmer over adversity for an hour and filter through the eyes of a precocious young girl who will to grow up to be one of the most important literary voices alive. And there you have it: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.

Let's start at the beginning. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings was written in 1969 by Maya Angelou. You might have heard of her. She recited poetry at President Bill Clinton's inauguration, received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama, and dominated the New York Times Bestseller list for two years. You might say she is Very Important People. But Caged Bird covers Angelou's life before she was a VIP, back when she was just little ol' Marguerite Johnson from Stamps, Arkansas.

The novel was released to both critical acclaim and widespread censorship as a new story about black female life with some majorly frank descriptions of sexuality. Between Toni Morrison and Oprah, we're pretty used to hearing stories about awesome black women these days. But at the time, no one had read anything like Caged Bird. It was kind of like before Avatar when no one made movies in 3D, or before Real Worldwhen reality TV hadn't yet conquered the world.

There are five other books in her series of autobiographies, but Caged Bird introduces us to the themes for which she is now famous: race, femininity, independence, identity, community, family, and travel. Oh, and it also shows off her literary chops.

So how did this fabulous new thing get written? It was a dare. That's right, Angelou's editor Robert Loomis was trying to get the then-poet to write a book. When she refused, he said, "It's just as well, because to write an autobiography as literature is just about impossible" (source). Angelou took the bait and locked herself in a room with a pen, paper, and a bottle of sherry for two years (source). When she finally emerged, Caged Bird was by her side.
Source:
Shmoop Editorial Team. "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings." Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 20 Mar. 2017.
My Opinion:
I don't like this book because it was mainly about racism and female's rights. It was also criticized as too "frank" about sexuality.

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Summary:
Esther Greenwood, a young woman from the suburbs of Boston, gains a summer internship at a prominent magazine in New York City, under editor Jay Cee; however, Esther is neither stimulated nor excited by either the big city or the glamorous culture and lifestyle that girls her age are expected to idolize and emulate. She instead finds her experience to be frightening and disorienting; appreciating the witty sarcasm and adventurousness of her friend Doreen, but also identifying with the piety of Betsy (dubbed "Pollyanna Cowgirl"), a "goody-goody" sorority girl who always does the right thing. She has a benefactress in Philomena Guinea, a formerly successful fiction writer (based on Olive Higgins Prouty), who will later pay some of Esther's hospital expenses.

Esther describes in detail several seriocomic incidents that occur during her internship, kicked off by an unfortunate but amusing experience at a banquet for the girls held by the staff of Ladies' Day magazine. She reminisces about her friend Buddy, whom she has dated more or less seriously, and who considers himself her de facto fiancé. She also muses about Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who are scheduled for execution. She returns to her Massachusetts home in low spirits. She has been hoping for another scholarly opportunity once she is back in Massachusetts, a writing course taught by a world-famous author, but on her return her mother immediately tells her she was not accepted for the course. She decides to spend the summer potentially writing a novel, although she feels she lacks enough life experience to write convincingly. All of her identity has been centered upon doing well academically; she is unsure of what to make of her life once she leaves school, and none of the choices presented to her (motherhood, as exemplified by the vacuous, prolific child-bearer Dodo Conway, or stereotypical female careers such as stenography) appeal to her.

Esther becomes increasingly depressed, and finds herself unable to sleep. Her mother encourages, or perhaps forces, her to see a psychiatrist, Dr. Gordon, whom Esther mistrusts because he is attractive and seems to be showing off a picture of his charming family rather than listening to her. He prescribes electroconvulsive therapy (ECT); and afterward, she tells her mother that she will not go back.

Esther's mental state worsens; describing her depression as a feeling of being trapped under a bell jar, struggling for breath. She makes several half-hearted attempts at suicide, including swimming far out to sea, before making a serious attempt. She leaves a note saying she is taking a long walk, then crawls into the cellars and swallows about 50 sleeping pills that had been prescribed for her insomnia. In a very dramatic episode, the newspapers presume her kidnapping and death, but she is discovered under her house after an indeterminate amount of time. She survives and is sent to a different mental hospital, where she meets Dr. Nolan, a female therapist. Along with regular psychotherapy sessions, Esther is given huge amounts of insulin to produce a "reaction," and again receives shock treatments, with Dr. Nolan ensuring that they are being properly administered. Esther describes the ECT as beneficial in that it has a sort of antidepressant effect; it lifts the metaphorical bell jar in which she has felt trapped and stifled. Her stay at the private institution is funded by her benefactress, Philomena Guinea.

Esther tells Dr. Nolan how she envies the freedom that men have and how she, as a woman, worries about getting pregnant. Dr. Nolan refers her to a doctor who fits her for a diaphragm. Esther now feels free from her fears about the consequences of sex; free from previous pressures to get married, potentially to the wrong man. Under Dr. Nolan, Esther improves and various life-changing events helps her regain her sanity. The novel ends with her entering the room for an interview, which will decide whether she can leave the hospital.

It is suggested near the beginning of the novel that, in later years, Esther goes on to have a baby.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bell_Jar
I don't want to choose this one because it is too dark. It was a depressed novel about a certain mental disease written by a depressed woman. It was said a great work, but I still don't want to choose it.

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summary: Their Eyes Were Watching God follows the life of Janie Crawford, a girl of mixed black and white heritage, around the turn of the century...which was not an easy time to be of mixed race. As an adolescent, Janie sees a bee pollinating a flower in her backyard pear tree and becomes obsessed with finding true love. (Because there's nothing hotter than a little bee-on-flower action.)

From there, the novel documents her emotional growth and maturity through three marriages.

Janie’s first marriage, to farmer Logan Killicks, is planned and executed by Janie’s well-intentioned grandmother, Nanny. Unfortunately, Nanny's plan doesn't go so well. In this marriage, Janie chafes under the uninspired but reliable Logan.

Make that uninspired, reliable...and abusive. After he threatens to kill her for not obeying him, Janie leaves Logan for the suave and ambitious Joe Starks.

Joe takes Janie to Eatonville, Florida, America’s first all-black city, where she lives the high life as the mayor’s wife. However, Janie finds that her husband has very rigid definitions of a woman’s role. Joe often silences Janie and refuses to listen to others’ opinions...which is no kind of good.

As Joe grows old, he tries to divert public attention from his failing body by accusing Janie of acting too young for her age. Finally, Janie can’t bear it anymore and lashes out at Joe, insulting his manhood and pride. Joe is deflated and takes to his deathbed, refusing to let Janie visit him. Janie bursts into Joe's room in his final moments and speaks her mind.

After his untimely death, Janie dons widow’s clothes and lives happily as a single woman until she meets a slick and fun-loving vagrant named Tea Cake. Although Tea Cake is 12 years younger than Janie, with him she finds the true love she has dreamed of all her life. In their relationship, both sides experience bouts of jealousy, but Janie and Tea Cake eventually find happiness working in the fields of the Everglades and mingling with the migrant workers.

Disaster arrives in the form of a hurricane. Tea Cake is given plenty of warnings about its coming and even an opportunity to flee, but he chooses to stay on the "muck" for the love of money. The hurricane strikes with divine ferocity, forcing all of the Everglades’ inhabitants to either leave or die. While fleeing the storm, Tea Cake saves Janie from a ferocious dog but gets himself bitten in the process.

Tea Cake gets rabies, and his natural jealousy turns into aggressive suspicion and paranoia over Janie. In the end, Janie is forced to shoot her husband to protect herself—rabies is not pretty. Though she's put on trial for murder, she's pronounced innocent.

After Tea Cake’s funeral, Janie returns home to Eatonville. There, she meets up with her old friend, Pheoby Watson, and tells her the whole story. This narration to Pheoby provides the framing for the whole novel.
Source: Shmoop Editorial Team. "Their Eyes Were Watching God Summary." Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 20 Mar. 2017.
My Opinion:
Although it is an interesting book about a strong-will woman, I don't really like this kind of book.

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Summary: The Joy Luck Club is a 1989 novel written by Amy Tan. It focuses on four Chinese American immigrant families in San Francisco who start a club known as The Joy Luck Club, playing the Chinese game of mahjong for money while feasting on a variety of foods. The book is structured somewhat like a mahjong game, with four parts divided into four sections to create sixteen chapters. The three mothers and four daughters (one mother, Suyuan Woo, dies before the novel opens) share stories about their lives in the form of vignettes. Each part is preceded by a parable relating to the game. The Joy Luck Club consists of sixteen interlocking stories about the lives of four Chinese immigrant mothers and their four American-born daughters.[1] In 1949, the four mothers meet at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco and agree to continue to meet to play mah jong. They call their mah jong group the Joy Luck Club. The stories told in this novel revolve around the Joy Luck Club women and their daughters. Structurally, the novel is divided into four major sections, with two sections focusing on the stories of the mothers and two sections on the stories of the daughters.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Joy_Luck_Club_(novel)
My Opinion:
Although its Chinese perspective attracts me at first, I don't really like the topic and characters of the story. The plot also seems boring.

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Summary:

In Native Son, protagonist Bigger Thomas takes a job working for the wealthy Dalton family. He accidentally kills Mary Dalton, the daughter, and attempts to destroy the evidence by burning her body. In his attempt to flee Chicago, Bigger descends into guilt and fear, which dehumanizes him even further. His story illustrates the devastating effects of racism.

Bigger Thomas's entire family lives in a single room. After they move to the South Side of Chicago, he's forced to take a job at the Dalton house in order to support his family.

Bigger accidentally kills Mary Dalton after she forces him to drink rum with her. To hide the evidence, he burns her body in the furnace. He's forced to flee, however, when police find some shards of bone along with Mary's earring.

Bigger plots with his girlfriend Bessie to extort money from the Daltons. When this fails, he realizes that she can implicate him in Mary's murder, so he kills her. He's later arrested and sentenced to death for his crimes.

Source: https://www.enotes.com/topics/native-son
My Opinion:
A sad story about a killing case and more in depth, racism. I don't really like the book complains about these stuffs. Too dark for me right now.

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Summary: a group of American and British expatriates who travel from Paris to the Festival of San Fermín in Pamplona to watch the running of the bulls and the bullfights. On the surface, the novel is a love story between the protagonist Jake Barnes—a man whose war wound has made him impotent—and the promiscuous divorcée usually identified as Lady Brett Ashley. Barnes is an expatriate American journalist living in Paris, while Brett is a twice-divorced Englishwoman with bobbed hair and numerous love affairs, and embodies the new sexual freedom of the 1920s. Brett's affair with Robert Cohn causes Jake to be upset and break off his friendship with Cohn; her seduction of the 19-year-old matador Romero causes Jake to lose his good reputation among the Spaniards in Pamplona.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sun_Also_Rises

My Opinion:
This is a masterpiece by Hemingway reflecting the history of 1920s. Personally I would read this if I have free time, but for ORB I would choose some modern ones.